


The Body Electric

by groundcontrol



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Billy Hargrove Being an Asshole, Billy Hargrove Redemption, Bisexual Steve Harrington, Child Abuse, F/F, F/M, Female Steve Harrington, Gen, Genderswap, Hair-pulling, Hate Sex, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Multiple Orgasms, Neil Hargrove Being an Asshole, Night Terrors, Oral Sex, Panic Attacks, Pansexual Character, Past Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler, Period-Typical Homophobia, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rivalry, Rough Sex, Self-Harm, Steve Harrington Is a Mess, Steve Harrington's Father Being an Asshole, Steve Harrington's Nail Bat, Steve Harrington-centric, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-08
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2020-08-11 20:13:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 92,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20159425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/groundcontrol/pseuds/groundcontrol
Summary: 'She started spending extra hours at the library with Nancy and sometimes even Byers, when he wasn’t working. She started sleeping with her bat by her bed, the nails hidden by the skirt of her night table, and when a storm got bad and the lights began to flicker, she yanked the cleaver from the butcher’s block in the kitchen and slept with it under her pillow.She slept restlessly, but she slept.'Stevie Harrington is on a self-improvement kick.Figures, the evil forces from another dimension just have to come back and fuck it all up for her.That, and Billy Hargrove.





	1. Seeking Freedom Beneath the Lonely Desert Sun

**Wednesday October 31st, 1984**

Stevie Harrington didn’t know what to do with herself anymore.

Ever since the events of last fall, she was suspended in a strange purgatory that shifted from her worrying that she was going to fail her calculus quiz and pounding adrenaline—white-knuckled and sweat beading in the raised hairs of her neck—when she saw a shadow from the corner of her eye.

She did her best to compensate, though. She started spending extra hours at the library with Nancy and sometimes even Byers, when he wasn’t working. She started sleeping with her bat by her bed, the nails hidden by the skirt of her night table, and when a storm got bad and the lights began to flicker, she yanked the cleaver from the butcher’s block in the kitchen and slept with it under her pillow. She slept restlessly, but she slept.

But though any sleep was good sleep these days, not enough sleep was longer enough.

Because there was no way that Stevie was actually seeing what was before her eyes. She was hallucinating. There was no other explanation.

“I’m telling you, he beat her by a full .5 seconds”, assistant coach Cleary protested as the girls’ team piled around him, tugging the stopwatch over to peer at the times.

Stevie was still catching her breath quietly, doing her best not to let the rest of the pool see the rapid rise and fall of her chest as she towelled off with a scowl. They couldn’t know that she’d given it her all, that she’d pushed herself as if monsters were nipping at her toes, and yet, that still wasn’t enough. He’d still pulled ahead, still beaten her own personal record by .27, and he didn’t even look winded. Across the lanes, he sat there drenched, not even attempting to wipe the chlorine from his tanned skin. He was staring, unabashed, and had been since he’d hauled himself over the edge of the water with a victory whoop.

Billy Hargrove was a prick.

She’d known ever since he’d rolled up to Hawkins High in a rumbling Camaro that Monday morning, engine drowning out the conversation she was trying to have with Nance and Byers about car repairs that she’d had to go get done over the weekend. And this ass had to rub his wheels in her face, after she, Stevie Harrington, had been dropped off by a school bus.

Sure, her car had been back on the streets of Hawkins and raring to go by that same afternoon, but it didn’t make her feel any better when she heard the rumble of the Camaro’s engine echo through the parking lot. 

Her parents were out of town again, her dad at a conference in New York, and her mom taking a sabbatical to teach a class on criminal law in Washington. She’d rushed out the door this morning, having snoozed through her alarm for the sixth time this month, barely managing to get her hair together, let alone a face full of makeup. Byers had already made a snarking comment about how she looked tired, while she’d rolled her eyes and gotten him to fall for the old ‘got something on your shirt’ routine, flicking him in the nose.

But that didn’t matter so much. The days of Queen Stevie were behind her, packed away in the back of her closet with the negatives to compromising photos and her old cheer uniform. She still spoke to Tommy and Carol, if only to get in a quick shot in before they realized she was talking smack. She still lived in a big, empty house in the nice part of town, and got to use her dad’s BMW when he wasn’t around not to tell her to _stop putting miles on that thing, girl_. And hers were still definitely top at the list of most coveted party invites, as evidenced by the half-dozen ragers she’d thrown over the summer.

What? Who was going to blame her for wanting to feel alive?

And if there ever was a strong reminder of how alive she was after last Halloween, it was the one fueled by cheap beer from a keg and loud music on a Tuesday night. She was always at her best with a red solo cup in one hand and shouting a joke over Billy Springsteen on the speakers to a crowd. In those moments, she was a live wire, stripped bare and dangerous in the sweat of the hazy dark. No one could tell her what to do, tell her _no_, not in those moments.

She’d tempered it with hours volunteering herself to her mother’s neglected flowerbeds, pruning and plucking away until everything was as pristine as she wished she was. Sometimes, Nancy would sit by, helping her pot cuttings to nurture indoors until they could root on their own. They would share a pitcher of lemonade and a bit of silence, cut with bits of conversation here and there.

But it was fall now, and her rhododendron bushes had curled their leaves against the chill. So instead she just tried to keep her hands busy long enough to keep from tearing her hair out when the existential dread began to set in. Because there was nothing quite so sobering as making peace with death and living to tell the tale.

Shaking her head, she began the painful process of peeling away her diving cap, hair wet and tangled underneath. She huffed as she tried to save face a little by making it do the thing it always did that had every girl and their mother begging to know where she got it styled, but had no luck. She was stuck living with the truth that she, fastest in the water, in Hawkins High, had been beaten by some jerk with a _mullet. _

It curled around his shoulders as Tommy smacked his left one, grinning wide and shouting some crap about how Hargrove was the new king, now.

He still hadn’t stopped staring.

He hadn’t even looked up at Tommy, his teeth white and shining beneath the fluorescent pool lights, bared between his smirking lips. In fact, the only thing he’d done was let himself slide down to lean on his elbows, resting on his knees and hands clasped to… Was he _flexing his fucking biceps? _

Stevie rolled her eyes, scoffing. Another sex-hungry jerk who couldn’t think past the top button of his jeans.

He’d try. They all did.

In the past, she’d tease, dangle herself in front of them like a brightly painted lure, reel them in real slow with half-hooded eyes and sweet-smelling hair, and then brush them away with a flick of her bangs. Without a thought.

She’d been cruel.

But Stevie Harrington, who when she couldn’t sleep at night spent hours swinging her bat in the basement, until her fingers blistered and her sweat made her grip treacherous, didn’t have time to be cruel. It had been rooted out, the black rot cut away from her in one night. She had planted something new in its cracked, broken stump; she had built a better person.

Billy Hargrove was just another asshole she wasn’t going to give anything. Not even her attention.

And so, she grit her teeth and dug her nails into her thighs until the sting cleared her head. She inhaled, stood, picking up her cap and goggles as she trudged back to the lip of the pool. She let herself fall in gently, dunking her head to make her hair manageable again before she squeezed back into her cap and snapped the band of her goggles into place.

Both hands on the edge, she pulled herself up and out, and got back onto the starting board. Breathing deep, she got into position and dove off.

][][][][][][][

He’d entered the pool to dozens of eyes trained on him, hushed giggles and whispers framing the water dripping down the tan skin of his back. He was smoking a cigarette, because of course, why wouldn’t he be?

Stevie was just hoping he wouldn’t get ash in the pool. It was already gross enough with all of the bodies filtering in and out, pre-swim showers be damned.

Hargrove made his way over, flanked by Tommy, Danny Moore and Ted Jensen. He’d already managed to collect the meatheads. Rolling her eyes, she kept working on her stretches, water dripping down her legs as she leaned her torso onto her right shin. It was clear that he was coming over to talk to her.

She wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction.

That is, until the asshole snapped the back strap of her bathing suit. The sting of elastic ran through her like a chill, cause her to shiver and cringe away. She hissed and rubbed at the spot, springing up from the bleachers to get in his face. But before she could call him a shithead and threaten his ability to reproduce, Hargrove opened his mouth, stepping into her space with a look like he thought his shit didn’t stink.

“Harrington, right? You know what I heard? That you used to run this school. That true, huh?”

His tone was arrogant, rude, and made her jaw clench. It tugged at the remnants of Queen Stevie, rattling deep from where she laid buried. Hawkins was still her little pond. At Hawkins High, Stevie was still the big fish.

“How the hell did some stuck-up chick from Indiana place first on both the women’s _and _men’s swim team?”

He spoke again before she could snap at him, gaze fixed on her as his lips moved and his eyes dancing with a mad light. His voice was rough and deep, and in her opinion, sounded like it belonged to a sixty year-old man who’d sat in cigar smoke for so long it had stained his skin.

She’d heard about him.

He was some bad boy hotshot metalhead cliche from California who’d gotten into trouble back home and had to drift into Hawkins to finish up his senior year. Nothing particularly exotic in most places, but in small town Indiana, definitely something to be ogled at.

The whispers followed him as he moved class to class, and seemed to chase him even in the time slots he didn’t share with Stevie. It seemed that all of Hawkins High was hot for Billy Hargrove. He had quickly fallen in with the tattered remains of the popular crowd, pathetic as they were without her. Well, to be fair, she’d been pathetic while she’d been part of that group, so…

But right now, personal growth be damned, Stevie wanted to spit in his face.

“What, and you think that some surfer kid from Cali with a two-pack-a-day habit is gonna do much better? You’d better slow your roll before I kick your ass in freestyle. Waves don’t do shit to make you faster, dumbass. I’m sure you’re great with a board in your hand and a joint in the other, _wastoid, _but here in Hawkins, we take this stuff seriously.”

Stevie was used to this kind of rapid-fire, cutting exchange. She and Carol had perfected the art from the fifth grade when they’d made Geoff Harris cry over the shade of blue his sneakers were. It was almost second nature. But this was something else, she could hear it in his voice. So she did her best to keep her tone level, to reveal nothing about how shaken she was to be challenged so publicly. He held nothing back, lingering on her legs as he sized her up, the muscles of his pectorals jumping as her crossed his arms and bared his teeth in a snarling grin.

“Sure thing, Harrington. I also fail to see how you, with all that dead weight attached to your head, is even able to manage a basic dead man’s float”, he shot back, his lip curling. “You’re dreaming if you think you can even fit that rat’s nest under a baseball cap, let alone a diving cap.”

“At least my hair choices aren’t something that will deeply shame me in ten years, Hargrove”, she sniped. Rolling her eyes for the umpteenth time, she huffed. “A _mullet? _Give me a break, jackass. It wasn’t even in cool in the seventies when truckers and hicks tried to make it a thing. The day you see me even willingly _look _at one is the day they send me away in a straightjacket.”

He glowered at her, his jaw muscles jumping as he clenched his teeth.

“I don’t take shit from _no one_, not even some pasty no-assed chicken-legged _hick _who’s clearly all talk and no game.”

She opened her mouth to retort, to call him all the names in the book, but he cut to the chase and put his cards down on the table.

“If you’re gonna talk big, you’d better be able to back it up. So you’re gonna cash that check your mouth just made, and you’re going up against me”, he added, the curl of his lip revealing that this had been his play all along. “Freestyle, two hundred.”

She didn’t like the look of him. She didn’t like how arrogant he was being, how little respect he was giving to the teams, to _her_. She also didn’t like how she might have been a little, just slightly worried he might actually come close to winning.

“Yeah, sure, because that’s what we should be spending our practice on, right, _coach?”_, she tried, snagging the attention of the men’s swim team instructor, a middle-aged man who saw medals and trophies piled in his office. The man was known for his lack of patience for fucking around.

“Not a bad idea, actually”, Coach Grant admitted, looking between the two. “I need to place Hargrove, and measuring him against the best we have should help me figure that out.”

Stevie keened at the praise, her back straightening and a smarmy grin fighting its way into her face. Sweet, sweet validation has never had better timing. But even with the small boost of Grant conceding top spot to her, she was frustrated it meant she’d have to go head to head with the new guy.

Especially when the new guy was clearly angling for something.

For what, she wasn’t sure yet. But Billy Hargrove wanted something that she had, and judging by the set of his shoulders, he wasn’t going to give up until he had it.

“Fine, a race, then. But only because Coach Grant is so sure I’m gonna mop the floor with you and your dumb mullet, Hargrove.”

“Only if your hair doesn’t drag you down first, Dead Weight”, he said in a cynical tone, pulling up his swim cap and goggles. Adjusting his speedo with an obnoxious smirk, he walked to the starting platform, the boys’ swim team in his wake.

][][][][][][

She was one of the last few people left in the pool.

She’d kept her head down after the race, had let the water wash away all the anger and resentment and _burning humiliation_ of being handed her ass on a silver platter.

Especially after Coach Grant had finally, after four years of sweat, blood and tears, handed down the verdict she’d always known was true but was just waiting for everyone else to realize.

‘The best we’ve got’ wasn’t glowing praise after all of that hard work. It was solid fucking gold. Especially coming from that old grump. She was sure Grant hadn’t smiled in the five year gap between regional swim meet victories, not until she’d won them the relay, and the freestyle five hundred in her freshman year.

But it was also a middle finger to the jerks like Tommy H., who couldn’t see past the tip of his dick to notice that women could in fact be the best. She’d fought for years to see the look on his face when she knew Grant would say the words. It had been glorious.

And it was all taken away in one fell swoop by the jackass with his feet up on the bleachers.

Removing her cap and goggles, she dove back under for a moment and forced her eyes open in the pale blue light of the bottom of the pool. It was different than the monsters that lived behind living room walls and through the trees, it was a quiet that stole everything else from her and left her clean. She spent a few moments drifting below, until her tailbone made contact with the concrete and she turned her head to the surface.

There was so much light in the world.

Clutching her arms around her chest, Stevie screamed until she had nothing left in her chest, and let the water drift her back to the top. She broke through with a gasp and made her way to the pool ladder, climbing it with shaky limbs and squeezing excess water from her hair.

She grabbed her already-damp towel, scrubbing it along her shoulders as she moved toward the girls’ locker room so this day could be over, already. She needed more sleep.

“Not so fast, Queen Stevie!”

Someone had grabbed her tightly by the wrist, pulling her away to slide against the wall. She fought against the tug around her arm, squirming away when it was finally let go. “Fuck off, creep!”

Billy Hargrove, the bad penny that kept turning up when she least needed him, grinned at her, blue eyes inches from her own. He had his elbows bracketed by her face, leaning over her as she searched for an exit. No one had noticed yet, and the synchro team’s music was drowning out their words. 

“Hey, Harrington, you finally gonna tell me what I wanna hear?”

Her nose wrinkled, and she tried to move away. “That your breath stinks like stale cigarettes and yesterday’s lunch meat?”

“Heyyyy now… Hhhharington…” He lingered on his exhales, his teeth white as he gnashed them in her face.

Sputtering, she gagged. “Leave me alone, asshole. You’re being childish.”

“I want to hear you say it, Harington”, he leered, his wet hair dripping onto her leg. “I wanna hear you call me _King.”_

Stevie scoffed, trying to kick away at his ankles and escape once more to no avail. “Fuck off, Hargrove! This is bullshit!”

“Maybe it is”, he laughed, his breath warm against her cheek. “But I wanna hear you say it.”

“Jesus Christ, you freak, fine! Have your empty validation, King Hargrove!” Stevie was ready to start screaming if she had to. She’d just felt what she was pretty sure was his junk rub up against her.

“Say my name, Stevie”, he taunted. “Say it.”

He was pressed closely against her by this point. She felt sticky from the chlorine, wishing she could peel her skin away from his. He was warm, muscles twitching as he kept her from breaking away.

“Go fuck yourself, _King Billy_.”

And at that, she yanked one knee up, straight into his crotch, a smile blooming across her face as he fell into a groaning crouch, doubled over and cursing her out.

Stepping over him, she hesitated for a breath about whether she should shoot him an extra kick to the kidneys. And then she remembered the better person she was supposed to become, how if she wanted a future away from dark and shadowed things, she had to grow different from who she used to be.

_Queen Stevie had been cruel. No more. _

She continued on, stepping over his recovering, prone form and into the locker rooms.

][][][][][][][

**Monday October 29th, 1984**

Dinner with Barb’s parents was going about as well as usual.

Which is to say, like a burning dumpster fire.

Nancy always got extremely fragile afterwards, slipping into a silent depression that could last days if Stevie didn’t do her best to keep her distracted from her thoughts. Sometimes, even distraction wasn’t enough.

But Stevie felt awkward and did her best to compensate with nervous small talk, trying to redirect the tension of the room somewhere she could control. Even if at times, it was at her own expense. After all, she’d be lying if she didn’t feel some level of guilt for their daughter’s death. She had, after all, been host to the party where she’d met her end.

If she was being honest, when she was busy running laps around her block early in the morning or swinging away in the basement on the bad nights, Barbara Holland haunted her just as persistently as the monsters without faces, opening great, drooling, teethed maws like a flower in bloom.

Barb’s eyes cut just as deep.

Mrs. Holland apologized for the takeout; something about no time and baked ziti that they ‘both love so much’.

Holding onto a KFC drumstick, Stevie’s hands began to shake, the ever-present dread of last year’s events tugging at her thoughts.

_Your daughter is dead because I’m an asshole. _

“I love KFC”, she mumbled, adopting a half-hearted grin between chews “Mm… finger-lickin’ good.”

The meat felt rubbery in her mouth as she did her best to swallow her mouthful without choking. Mr. Holland grunted his assent, while Mrs. Holland fluttered around the table, adjusting her napkin and fiddling with the utensils.

“So, um”, Nancy started, desperately trying to break the ice in another of many tenuous silences. “I saw the for sale sign in the front yard. Is that the neighbors, or…?”

“Oh, you wanna tell them?!” Mrs. Holland offered her husband before he motioned for her to go ahead. “We’ve hired a man named Murray Bauman”, she announced brightly, as if the ghost of her daughter wasn’t looming over the dinner table. “He was an investigator for the Chicago Sun Times. He’s freelance now, and he’s agreed to take the case..”

“Oh, um”, Stevie managed through her cold mashed potatoes as she and Nancy stared at this guy’s card. “That’s great. That’s… uh, great.”

“What… exactly does that mean?” Nancy edged out, cautious as she look down at the dinner table, unable to maintain eye contact.

“It means he’s going to do what that lazy sonovabitch Jim Hop-“, Mr. Holland raged as his wife put a calming hand on his arm. Stevie restrained a mounting objection– Hopper had been a source of support in these past few months, smoothing over the details of their odd adventures with the press and townspeople all while arguing viciously on their behalf in regards to the Department of Energy. The older man apologized, inhaled and continued.

“—what the Hawkins Police haven’t been capable of doing. It means… we have a real detective on the case.”

Mrs Holland cut in, eyes and smile bright. “It means we get to find our Barb.”

“He already has leads. By god”, Mr. Holland began to get choked up. “He’s worth every penny.”

“Is that why you’re selling the house?” Nancy blurted out. Stevie’s fork was beginning to slip through her fingers.

“Oh, don’t worry about us”, Barb’s mother cajoled. “We’re just fine. Better than we’ve been in a long time. We’re hopeful.”

Nancy’s smile grew tight. “Excuse me, I’ll be right back.”

She knew exactly where Nance was going to hide.

Away from the Hollands. Away from Barb’s memory. Away from herself.

_Away from her. _

Digging her nails into her clammy palms, Stevie Harrington faced down the parents of the girl whose death was worse than just her fault; she’d barely even been an afterthought.

Biting into an extra-crispy breastbone, ignoring how the last mouthfuls had been trapped in her throat, she looked up at her hosts. Her voice barely a croak, she managed,

“So about this family bucket trio…”

][][][][][][][

**Tuesday October 30th, 1984**

When she wasn’t in school, Nancy Wheeler was always packing heat. Jonathan Byers kept a hunting knife in his glove compartment and a shovel in the trunk. And Stevie cruised easy with her best bat riding shotgun under the passenger seat.

They didn’t talk about their demons. Not often.

They tried to keep the horror of the Upside Down from permeating the rest of their lives. They all knew that if they gave it a voice, it would spread, until there was no escape left.

But they held on to each other, tenuously at times, but in a silent promise to remain a united front against the things that go bump in the night, that tear away friends and family until there’s nothing left but _getting them back_.

This shit brought out the best in them, and the worst.

She was now intimately familiar with how to set a bear trap, the smack of nails in flesh, how to stalk a predator through the night.

Before last Halloween, Stevie had never even been hunting. A feat in small-town Indiana, for sure. Though that was a product of her father wishing she’d been born with a dick—she’d argue till the end of time that she had bigger balls than half the losers in this town, but that wasn’t enough—but she now knew exactly what she, and the people in her life were fully capable of.

Apparently that also included burying their fear and anxiety deep, pushed down and held under until her hands stopped shaking, until Nancy didn’t constantly check her six, until Byers didn’t jump at loud noises.

But maybe, Stevie thought, in the aftermath of the car wreck of a dinner with the Hollands, maybe they should actually _talk about this shit_. Nance clearly needed it. And Stevie herself was beginning to wear thin, having spent half of the two hours she’d been home pacing frantically, her feet searching for a sprint. Even Byers, holding it together for himself and his brother, had new lines, born of worry and other things, carved into the topography of his face.

Earlier that morning, Nancy had had an episode in the library, staring intently at the back of the librarian’s head as she sharpened away half of her new pencil, half an inch from grinding the skin of her index away with the wood shavings.

“I can’t keep pretending everything’s okay”, she gasped in the private study room they’d ducked into. “Barbara… it’s like no one remembers, like no one cares that she’s gone–except her parents, and now they’re selling their house, and they’re spending the rest of their lives looking for her without knowing that she–“

She was starting to hyperventilate, hands flying as she centred her panic in her best friend’s death and disappearance. Stevie reached out, grabbing her gently by the shoulders before she fell into a fully-blown anxiety attack.

“Hey”, she said, in what she hoped was a gentle voice. Her heart was pounding in her ears, guilt rising bitter in her throat. “You know that there’s nothing we can do.”

Nancy shot her a look of disbelief. She looked betrayed, and scared.

“You might not remember signing our lives away to the American government, but I distinctly remember the paragraph that mentioned ‘_under threat of conviction to life in prison with the option to pursue the death penalty in exchange for committing treason, the undersigned will maintain the secrecy of the following aspects of the last few days’ events…”_

Nancy’s eyes cleared and she mumbled an apology. “I didn’t… I didn’t really read what I was signing when they released us. I was just so exhausted and just wanted to go home…”

Clearing her throat, Stevie laughed nervously. “And you’re supposed to be the smart one?”

Pausing, she considered, amending her statement. “I wouldn’t have bothered, but my mom’s a lawyer and one of the only things she’s really taught me was about knowing what you’re signing. Always read your contract first.”

Biting her lip, tears were welling in Nancy’s eyes. She was desperate now, searching for a way out. “I know I just… we don’t have to tell them _everything… _just… enough.”

“Nance”, her voice was soft. “You know we can’t do that. They know everything, and they can do _whatever they want. _“

At that, her friend began to sob quietly. Pulling her closer into her arms, Stevie held her against her chest, a warmth blossoming in her ears and fingertips. “It sucks, I know. I… let’s just go to Tina M.’s stupid party and forget about all of this.”

Stevie knew this wasn’t going away overnight. But she was tired, and hadn’t gotten nearly enough sleep, and Tina M. had invited her and half the upperclassmen at Hawkins High to a Halloween party.

She couldn’t bury her feelings forever, but tonight, tonight she would keep digging.

It was time for something normal.

A party where the monsters took off their masks and said ‘scuse me’ as they bumped past with beer sloshing from their cups. A night where the biggest threat was them running out of booze, or dodging Hawkins PD when the neighbours finally called in a noise complaint.

Stevie could live with a bit of that.

“Can we just… pretend for a night that we’re just stupid teenagers, having fun? Going to a party?”

She was pleading at this point, her voice delicate and her stare aimed at her shoes.

“Okay, I guess…”

_She’d take it. _


	2. Down Too Long in a Midnight Sea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nancy Wheeler REALLY doesn't know how to hold her liquor.

**Tuesday October 25th, 1983**

Her fingers tingling, sticking together as she reached for the door handle, felt lighter than air. It reminded her of the buzz of nicotine, starting deep in her stomach and warming her lips as she exhaled.

Nancy Wheeler was at her house, to see _her. _

It made her want to sing along to that song from the new Tom Cruise flick she’d skipped class with Carol and Tommy to watch during chem. To slide around in socks on the freshly waxed wood floors, wear sunglasses, indoors, at night. It made her want to act like an idiot.

She was _Stevie Harrington._

She was no one’s fool.

And yet, here she was, fluffing up her hair and trying to will her reddened cheeks, burning with excitement, to fuck off already. She doubted she had much success, but then, the show must go on.

With Trooper blaring in the background on her stereo, she wrenched the door open.

“Ladies”, she began breathlessly. “Welcome to the party.”

Nancy was dressed in a new top that wrapped delicately around the slim contours of her wrists and collarbones. She seemed unsure, nervous, but excited to be there. Stevie also gave a cursory glance to her friend, who looked the same as she always did, she assumed.

Not that she usually paid enough attention to the friend to even notice.

Her eyes were fixed instead on the dip of Wheeler’s waist, of how the silk of her shirt hugged her ribs.

_Don’t stare. Don’t let them see you looking. _

She was only a little buzzed. She knew she had no excuse.

So she shook herself off and snapped back to her role as host to distract herself from how delicate and beautiful Nancy Wheeler looked, standing and waiting on her front porch. Sweeping them inside, Stevie gave the requisite tour of the ground floor; kitchen, bathrooms, and finally, the backyard.

Tommy and Carol were already out there, three cans into the 24-pack she’d convinced the clerk at the gas station had ‘gone missing’ for twenty bucks and a quick flash of her cleavage. Her breath smelt of beer, she knew, as she draped an arm around Nancy’s shoulder and led her to the best seat in the house. Settling her into her favourite lawn chair, Stevie passed her (and Holland, she thought—she wasn’t sure if she was the red head in her Social Studies class or if they’d sat across from each other for two years in middle school) a Budweiser, cracking one open for herself.

Taking a hearty swig, she collapsed on the ground, her back resting against Nancy’s feet and calves as she lounged. The cool air of the night gave her an excuse to press closer, enjoying the warmth of Wheeler’s legs through her cardigan.

“This is the stuff”, she smirked, shaking a cigarette out of the pack in her breast pocket. She lit it with a big box of matches she used to get the barbecue started at pool parties, tossing the still-burning piece of wood into the water. Let Costa deal with it when he came to clean the pool Friday, she justified, as she also explained away Angie coming to tidy the house tomorrow as reason enough for leaving out her empties and cigarette butts.

Carol and Tommy were acting like idiots, as usual, giggling and stumbling all over one another while Holland—she still wasn’t sure she in fact _was _Holland and not someone else entirely—stood awkwardly by then, shifting from one foot to the other.

Craning her neck back between Nancy’s knees, she looked up at her, upside down, a grin stretched wide. She had already almost finished her beer, having drunk quickly in small sips. Stevie could hear the slosh of liquid in the can, hear the bubble of carbonation against the aluminum.

She’d first noticed her in the halls at Hawkins High the day Nancy had worn a lilac dress that floated in the breeze, and had been quick to introduce herself when she’d seen the sharp intellect behind those doe-eyes and the potential in those quick fingers. She’d wormed her way into the Wheelers’ home with promises of study tips for Haller’s chem midterm, only to rush up to their daughter’s room and admit she’d scraped by with a C- and a 50% attendance record. She’d been less than impressed, but allowed her to sit cross-legged next to her on her lacy pink twin bed and flip through flash cards covering things she’d long forgotten. She’d seen the way Nancy Wheeler’s eyes glinted when she laughed, how her dimples showed when she called her an idiot playfully, as Stevie made herself a fool in a way she’d promised herself she never would.

It made her heart gallop in her chest, made her lips turn up on their own when she was around. Nancy Wheeler made her dizzy and lightheaded in the way that usually only marijuana could, made her giggle and want to touch—

Shaking her head back down, Stevie’s mood darkened. She couldn’t let herself think like that.

Not here, not now.

Not in front of Carol and Tommy, even in front of Holland.

Probably not even in front of Nancy.

Biting her lip, she flicked the end of her smoke into the pool—for Costa, for Friday—and drained her beer. Snagging another one, she decided to crank things up a notch. She needed a distraction from Nancy Wheeler’s neck. “Time to get this party started!”

Holding a pocketknife haphazardly with her left hand, she stuffed her unopened beer under one arm while she used her right to pry it open and snap it into place. She grabbed the can again, stabbing it into the side and cracking open the top. She rushed to seal her lips over the hole and gulped down the rush of Bud.

As she finished, she turned to Nancy, who was laughing quietly. “Was that supposed to impress me?”

She paused.

“You’re such a cliché, Stevie Harrington.”

Falling back into a chair of her own, she tapped out another cigarette and stuck it in the corner of her mouth. “Wha-? How am _I _a cliché?”

Nancy Wheeler burst into laughter, as Holland rolled her eyes, having finally settled into a chair not far from her friend’s. Stevie rolled her eyes back, as Holland shot her a disgusted look, as she tried and failed to hold back a burp. “_What?”_

Nancy just laughed harder, doubled over and clutching at her sides. Her nose was all scrunched up in the cutest way, and with her eyes shut, she looked so—

“What’s up, losers?”

The clatter of her theatrics had shaken Carol and Tommy from their sappy couples’ shit, and they’d wandered over for more beer. Carol’s tone always meant a sarcasm that was an inside joke between the two of them, meant she was free to fire back at will.

Nancy took it a bit personally. Her shoulders had tensed, and her mouth was no longer laughing.

Tommy snickered, picking up another can and, mimicking Stevie, took it down in a few seconds, stumbling a bit as he spilled some on his shoes. He never could hold his alcohol. Literally, apparently, Stevie thought wryly as she pulled a large flask from the bottomless pockets of her cardigan. She took a swig and grimaced slightly, Carol shooting her a teasing look as she wrinkled her nose.

Nancy giggled uncomfortably at Tommy’s antics, while Holland continued to express how unimpressed she was. Stevie wondered why the redhead had even bothered to show up if she was just going to be upset with them drinking the whole time. That had, after all, been the whole premise for the entire evening.

But she didn’t want her party turning sour. She did have a reputation to maintain, after all. She couldn’t afford to be a bad host. Especially not for Nancy.

“So, Wheeler, you gonna tell me how I’m a cliché?” Stevie spoke up, drawing the attention back to herself. “Actually, you’re the cliché, with your grades, and your band practice.”

She grinned at her, winking with exaggeration. “I’m not even in band! Besides, that’s not all I am”, Nancy protested, turning to face her and distracted from Tommy and Carol. She was smiling again, though shyly this time.

Time to draw her out and away from that shell. She knew, just _knew _that Nancy would shine if she put her in the right light. Like cut crystal on a chandelier. Stevie wished she could even be so lucky as to stand in that kind of beauty’s presence; to bask in it.

Maybe this moment was that light.

“Well, then, party girl”, Stevie smirked, tossing her a can and pressing the pocketknife into her hand. “Why don’t you show us how it’s done?”

Melt With You by Modern English was playing softly on the radio, while Nancy took the beer, sighing in exasperation. “Okay, then.”

The glare that Holland was giving her right now could melt the steel frame of a Mac truck. She brushed it off with a laugh, which turned Holland’s expression even more angry.

Stevie just smiled wider and turned back to her pet project. “You’ve gotta our a hole near the bottom-“

“I got it”, she replied, tone soft but words firm. Tommy laughed, arms wrapped around Carol.

“Yeah, she’s smart, you dumbshit.”

He laughed again, throwing his can to the ground with a hollow sound as Nancy began to tap the Bud and crack it open. Holding out the flask she’d brought out, she began to chant, the others joining in.

“Chug! Chug! Chug! Chug! Chug!”

They kept on going until she held the van away from herself, wiping at her mouth with a smile and bright eyes. She dropped it, and it clattered, empty.

They howled, her, Stevie, Tommy and Carol, screaming into the thick quiet of a small town night. She had her arms held up in victory, or surrender.

Stevie couldn’t decide which she found more attractive.

“Barb, do you want to try?”

Stevie took another sip from the flask, whiskey burning sweet down her throat. It made her eyes water a touch and she blinked it away as Holland was forced to succumb to Nancy’s insistence that she have a good time, for once. She threw in a ‘yeah, come on’ at the right moment, watching as she allowed her friend to press the can into her her hands.

Holland stood, unsteady and uncomfortable. Fumbling with the knife, she slipped and sliced into the skin between her index and thumb, doubling over and holding her hand away. Stevie could hear the blood dripping on the concrete lining the edge of the pool.

“Gnarly”, Tommy let out, clearly fascinated.

“Are you okay?” Nancy was fretting over Holland, who was apparently having none of it.

“I’m fine.”

“Barb, you’re bleeding!”

“I said, I’m fine!”

Her voice was cold, and she refused to meet Nancy’s eyes. Standing straight, she addressed Stevie directly. “Where’s your bathroom?”

Hauling herself upright, she began to explain, heading inside to point her around which bend to the left of the kitchen she would find it. Holland was short in her tone, but thanked her once she found the right door.

Stevie headed back outside, where somehow, Carol had ended up inside the pool, screeching at her boyfriend. Tommy laughed once more, taking a last puff of his cigarette as he tossed it away and canonballed in, splashing her and Nancy, giggling by the edge.

Taking a running start, she knocked Nancy in after him, falling in with a shout of joy.

Stevie loved pool parties.

The water was still warm, kept so by a heater that her parents had installed when she turned twelve. Their clothes waterlogged, they thrashed through the deep end, faces alight with the glow of the pool lighting and the blue of the walls. Thejr beers left forgotten, they swept each other away in the tide of chlorine.

They all splashed at each other, taking turns dunking one after another, playing keep-away with shoes.

They laughed, clinging around shoulders, treading water sharing breath while Tommy and Carol ignored them, too wrapped up in each other. They didn’t see how comfortably her hands rested at Nancy’s waist, or how Nancy’s fingers clutched each other loosely behind the small of Stevie’s back

It lasted a few moments too little, as they finally clambered out of the water to duck inside to towel off. Carol kept shivering and complaining of the cold, while Stevie snuck Nancy liquor from her flask to keep warm as they attempted to get dry. Though when Tommy and Carol made off for her parents’ bedroom—and she really couldn’t care less, so long as this time they threw the condom out instead of leaving it tangled in the sheets—she offered for Nancy to come up to her own.

As they turned and headed up the stairs, Holland finally emerged from the bathroom to scold her friend. The pair froze, halfway up the stairs. “Nancy! Where are you going?”

“Oh”, she replied, smiling almost regretfully, as if she’d forgotten about her. “Nowhere. Just… upstairs, to change. I… fell in the pool.”

She spread her arms helplessly in a _what-can-you-do_ fashion, eyebrows raised in amusement.

“We’re gonna go do a makeover”, Stevie cut in, feeling oddly satisfied when the redhead’s face fell slightly. “A little My Fair Lady, a little Fast Times at Ridgemont High.”

She was rewarded with a scowl and another eye roll. Clearly, she had not left a great impression.

“Why don’t you go ahead and go home?” Nancy continued, apologetic now. “I’ll just—I’ll just get a ride or something.”

“_Nance_”, Holland insisted, shooting her a worried look.

“_Barb_”, Wheeler returned, eyes motioning to the door. “I’m fine.”

She raised her hand, covered in her towel to hide the blush and grin growing there. Stevie could just see both features peek through, and they made her stomach feel like she’d jumped from her roof onto a trampoline.

In a quieter, more fragile tone, Holland tried one last time. “This isn’t you.”

“_I’m fine._ Just… go ahead and go home, okay?”

“It’s okay, Barbara”, Stevie added as Holland turned to leave, her smile all honeysuckle and apple pie. Butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. “She’s in good hands.”

][][][][][][][][

**Wednesday October 31st, 1984**

Stevie was in the mirror of her vanity, blending out eyeshadow, curling lashes, primping and priming for Halloween. Her hair was at its best, and she’d wrangled her jean shorts into something almost indecent with the help of some pinking shears. Some daisy dukes for a Daisy Duke costume.

She knew she’d freeze her ass off, it was end of October after all, but she’d tried to cut back on hypothermia with some nylons hidden discreetly beneath. She’d also traded the red strappy heels for some leather mid-calf boots that added just an extra three inches. Anything more at a party was asking for a rolled ankle.

She had shut out thoughts of last year, if anything from other worlds or stranger ones from their own. She drank from a flask and refused to think of little girls who were supposed to be able to flip trucks and liquefy peoples’ brains with _her mind. _She drank about half, enough for the pit of her stomach to grow warm and her hands to stop shaking. She needed to be able to apply mascara without putting out an eye.

Stevie was going to have a good time.

She _had_ to have a good time.

Her ride was already arranged for; she’d asked if Tammy Thompson had any space for her to squeeze in the back of her little Prius that morning before Spanish in exchange for explaining the conjugation of ‘Caer’ and notes. She’d learned basic conversational Spanish from her nanny growing up, a wonderful woman who dedicated years of her life to raising Stevie. Catalina had whispered to her, once upon a time, in nothing but her mother tongue. She’d grown rusty and out of habit as she’d grown up and Catalina had been told her services were no longer necessary, but she could still muster enough to pass Spanish IV with a B+. It was her best subject, though she hoped her new work ethic could last her long enough to bump up her grades enough to match it

She wouldn’t have a ride back, as Tammy was staying at Tina’s, She could stumble home the twenty minute walk later, or she could beg Byers for a ride since she knew he’d be responsible enough for the both of them if he even bothered showing up.

She’d figure it out. She always did.

Though her hands felt empty without the handle of her bat.

Rolling the sleeves of her plaid shirt, she heard Tammy honk from outside, putting those thoughts out of her mind. Stevie gave herself one last look in the mirror, turning to both check the length of her shorts (maybe shorter than she’d aimed for, and aiming for a PG rating) and the curve of her ass (she _did not have chicken legs, fuck that prick_). Grabbing her wallet and keys, she ran down the stairs and hopped into the back seat of Tammy’s car. The girls inside squealed as they squished in together, giggling as Stevie slammed the door and buckled her seatbelt.

Heather, riding shotgun, turned on the cassette player and stuffed in a Cindy Lauper tape, as the others began to gossip and show their mounting excitement for the party.

“So I heard that Tina invited the new guy, that Billy Hargrove”, the redhead said in a bright voice, checking her cat ears in her compact. Sally, Stevie thought. No, Stella. She knew she was Stella.

She also couldn’t believe that they were _already_ gossiping about the jerk. She wasn’t surprised at all that he was a topic of conversation, not with the impression that he’d made. But she’d at least been hoping they’d wait until a few minutes in before they started waxing poetic about his ass. She knew it was imminent.

Brenda Q. was sitting between them, and sighed. “He’s so hot. I went to watch the swim team practice the other day since he said he was gonna try out in Kinley’s English class, and he has a _six pack_-“

Stevie resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Predictable.

Yeah, he was in good shape. How the hell else was he supposed to beat her?

That, and she wasn’t going to deny the obvious, it was just a fact that he had a body that had most of the girls in town crossing their thighs. But it didn’t even come close to making up for his shit personality.

He acted like a fifth-grade bully, for Christ’s sake.

She was sure that if he sat behind her in any classes, he’d kick the back of her chair, or try tanking on her hair, or even shoot spit balls at her when the teacher wasn’t looking. He was immature, and he was a jerk, and he _didn’t deserve this much attention. _

But that didn’t seem to matter to Heather, Tammy, Brenda or Stella. Or to anyone else, oddly enough.

When she thought of it, apart from a few teachers who’d taken issue with how loud his car and music were, and his habit of smoking in the boys’ room, hers were the only toes he’d stepped on so far.

Which meant he definitely had her, and her alone, in his sights. For what yet, she didn’t know.

But she’d heard stories.

Stevie did remember Hop making some joke about ‘going for the biggest guy in there and making sure all the others saw’ if she ever actually ended up behind bars for more than a few hours. Of course, this was following the incident at the movie theater the year before, and she’d been so bruised and bloody after that that she was giving that scene from Jaws III a run for its money.

The rumors had been rampant, but she, for the first time in her life, hadn’t listened.

She only had so much energy, and her time was getting real expensive these days, especially with how much of it she spent trying to fix her failing academic career and attempting to find sleep.

Shaking her head, she returned to the girls’ conversation. She wasn’t the biggest guy in here. Billy had no reason to kick her ass.

_Just at the top of the food chain, is all. _

“I heard that he’s already hooked up with Justine Robertson, she said he has the biggest—“ Heather cut off with another giggle. The others tittered alongside her, adjusting bangs and costumes and lipstick.

“I’ve heard he does this thing with his _tongue—“_

Stevie didn’t want to hear this. She didn’t want to sit there and listen to how the new guy who’d beat her out in her own pool, who had cornered her after for an extra bit of shove-it-in-your-face, who was such an _irredeemable asshole_, was getting laid more than she was.

She hadn’t been with anyone in months, not since…

Shivering, she remembered what time of the year it was, how on a Tuesday in weather like this, just a year before, Barbara Holland died in her back yard and she learned to sleep with the lights on. She kept a string of Christmas lights up in her room, never turning them off. Her parents hadn’t noticed, and Angie didn’t comment past asking her if she’d mind if she unplugged them to use the vacuum.

The answer was _yes, because what if we can’t see them flickering? What if the monster with no face and so many, many teeth tore its way through her bedroom wall?_

Instead, she smiled and shook her head softly, resting back on her bed, staring at a teen fashion magazine until her eyes stung from not blinking.

The car stopped, reminding her that they’d just pulled up to the party. She reached to open her door, and after thanking Tammy and wishing the other girls a good night, yanked it open and made her way out into the cool night air.

][][][][][][][][][

The party was decently underway before things began to go terribly wrong.

“No—n-no”, Nancy protested as Stevie reached for her arm, chasing her through a crowd. She pushed other people as she elbowed past, practically diving for the drink table. She’d been pushing her luck by even drinking; Nance was a lightweight.

They drank on occasion—always together and never in front of Byers. Almost always alone.

Stevie thought of whiskey and hot chocolate, of soft words whispered at dawn, and decided that this was enough for one night.

Nancy had been slurring her words for the past half an hour, and had decided she wanted a fourth cup of the punch when Stevie had drawn the line.

“I think you’ve had enough”, she snapped, frustrated. This was supposed to be a night where they weren’t on edge all the time, where they could just cut loose and have a good night. She’d barely slept the night before and had spent three hours in her basement before collapsing, and was barely holding it together with a whole pot of coffee to keep her standing upright. Her patience was running on empty.

“Screw you!” her friend shot back, turning to grab another solo cup as Stevie scrambled to keep it out of her hands. Nancy’s hands were like little pincers; hard and unrelenting. She clamped on and refused to let go.

“Nance! I’m serious! Stop!”

The dread of what she might _do, _might _say_ when she got too intoxicated… Stevie wasn’t just afraid of things that go bump in the night. She spent restless hours brimming with anxiety that the Department of Energy would hear her pacing past midnight, would dip their fingers deep into her life and dig until they couldn’t be pulled out again without leaving dents. She couldn’t let her friend, caught in the middle of a crisis on conscience and an open book after four beers.

If she was being honest, she was also terrified of what she might say in front of their peers.

Nancy had filled her cup already and was attempting to leave the table to go chug it in a corner somewhere. Stevie was getting desperate. “I’m serious! Hey, hey!”

She began to grab at the cup, yanking it away as Nancy stumbled, protesting loudly. “Put it down!”

“Sssstevie, stop!”

They both tugged, and the bright red punch splashed down the front Nancy’s white dress as the cup went flying. She’d gone as Baby from Dirty Dancing, all white tulle and kitten heels from the end of the movie. She was certain that she was regretting that in this moment.

The crowd had echoed with ‘ohs’ as all turned to witness Stevie Harrington fucking up once more. She felt the blood drain from her face as Nance looked down at her shirt, mouth open, before narrowing her eyes into a glare and pointing it straight at her.

“‘The hell?”, Nancy asked in a low tone, anger and hurt shining through the intoxication. Looking around at the peanut gallery standing around watching, she stalked to the bathroom, Stevie hot on her heels, rushing through apologies.

As she entered the bathroom, Stevie closed the door behind them for some privacy as Nancy began groping around for a towel. “_Nance.”_

Her tone was desperate. She hated desperate.

No response; Nancy ignored her in favor of swiping at her shirt with a dampened hand towel.

“It’s not coming off”, Stevie said lamely, at a loss for what to do.

“‘S coming”, was the stubborn reply, still swiping with unsteady arms. Stevie decided on that moment. “C’mon, let me take you home. Please, Nance, let’s just go home.”

“Yyou wanted thisss”, she insisted, falling into a lean on the counter, trying to melt away from Stevie’s hands trying to right her.

“No, I didn’t want this. You went and drank too much—“

“‘Ss bullshit.”

“No, it’s not bullshit”, she began, tired all of the sudden. She ran a hand through her bangs, trying to keep calm.

“Bullshit.” Nancy was up and stumbling once more. “Bullshit!”

“No, I—“

“No, no, you. Y’re bullshit.”

It made her pause, and feel like a horrible revelation had just come about. She could feel it dropping from her throat to her stomach, a lead weight in free-fall.

“You’re bullshit.”

Hearing it again felt like a punch to the gut.

“P-pretending ev’rything’s fine”, she began, ramping up. Her face was inches from Stevie’s, and was on the verge of tears. “Like-like we didn’ kill Barb?”

Stevie wanted to vomit. She was beginning to sweat cold, and her hands were shaking, even after the few drinks she’d had already. She couldn’t do this. Not here, not now. Her heart was pounding in her ears and spots of light were beginning to dance in her vision.

But Nancy wasn’t done.

“Like iss-it’s great?” she continued, her lip curling in disdain. “Like we’re best friends? Like w’re friends? Like we’re partying? Let’s p-party. P-party-partying. We’re parrrtying.”

Her slurs were devolving into a messy ramble, but she’d already heard the words stab her in the gut.

_She blames me for Barb’s death. She doesn’t even want to be my friend. She knows I’m pretending that everything’s okay. _

Stevie could feel sweat drip past the raised hairs on the back of her neck as Nancy Wheeler spoke, and yet, every cutting word managed to get through.

“‘Ss bullshit.”

One hand stretched out, hesitant and trembling, inches from Nancy’s cheek. Through the rising tide of panic and fear, Stevie held on for dear life. One last olive branch, bruised and battered as it was. Hoping she heard wrong. 

“‘Like’ we’re best friends? ‘Like’ we’re friends?”

Nancy stares back at her, resolute and with a closed-book face.

“‘Ss bullshit.”

In a fragile tone, one that she hadn’t let herself speak in when she wasn’t discussing monsters and people who had died, she whispered, “You don’t think we’re friends?”

Stone-faced and final, this time with effort; with feeling.

“It’s bullshit.”

Stevie wasn’t an idiot. She wouldn’t sit there and just take harsh slam of rejection over and over. She wouldn’t stay where she wasn’t wanted.

Exiting the bathroom in a rush with tears in her eyes that she refused to allow to fall, she hoped that no one had noticed the hellish revelation she’d just been thrust into.

Nancy Wheeler didn’t care about her even enough to call her friend.

She thought that she was guilty of Barbara Holland’s death, and she knew that Stevie wasn’t doing as well as she was hoping everyone would believe. She had thrown all of her ammunition out tonight, and had scored a direct hit.

All of that trouble last year, and what did she have to show for it?

A one-sided relationship with a girl whose best friend they both knew had been murdered because Stevie was selfish and mean, a new slew of emotional and mental issues to add to the pile, and, _oh yeah_, the bat with nails driven through it that she kept trying not to think about.

Was it worth this?

Taking a moment to gather herself, she breathed deep through her nose and dug her nails into her thighs, grounding herself in the sharp sting of her nails on skin. She adjusted her hair, smoothed out her shorts and made her way back to the kitchen for a new glass of punch.

][][][][][][][][][

She heard counting in the distance while she did shots with Heather on the pool table.

Stevie knew that those meatheads were probably doing keg stands again, but as the count kept going up, so did her eyebrows.

“Did you hear tha’?” Heather slurred, grabbing onto her arm for support. “Les’ go see who’s winning at drin-king-ing..”

They wove their way through the crowd, arm in arm. Pulling up to the backyard, they managed to catch Billy Hargrove being hoisted down from his handstand. He let out a victory cry, spitting beer in a fine spray towards Tommy, the previous Keg King of Hawkins.

Billy had, as with her, beaten his time by a mile. Tommy had stood proud at 39 seconds, while Hargrove had shattered the previous record at 46 seconds.

Standing back from the crowd, taking it all in, she could see it in his eyes. He _loved _this. He fed from the frantic energy of their admiration, of their awe. He reveled in their attention, like a flower turning to face the sun. It reminded her of herself.

Or at least, of the person she used to be, a long, long time ago before she grew up and remembered that there are, in fact, things in this world worth being scared of. But she could remember the way it made her feel.

And what it made her feel—

Her thoughts were interrupted, once more, _as usual_, by Billy Hargrove’s stare.

She had the feeling that he, much like she, had put far more effort into his appearance than he’d like anyone to have realized. She could see extra volume in his hair, see the glint of a chain against his chest.

His gaze felt like fingers, searching. For the clasp of her bra, for the waistband of her shorts.

She wanted to reach over and crack his head again the keg. Anything, really, if only just to keep from looking at her with that unflinching hunger.

It was getting distracting. She was, after all, looking for two things; to drink until she couldn’t remember what a slap in the face Nancy Wheeler had just delivered to her feelings, and to find someone worth dragging into Tina’s guestroom.

And suddenly, he was cutting through the crowd like he’d picked up a machete, eyes still burning and holding her own hostage.

“Looks like he wants to talk t’you, Stevieee Girl”, Heather pointed out helpfully. She hiccuped, stumbling once more against Stevie.

“Well, I don’t feel like talking much, tonight”, she let slip hotly. She was still reeling from the incident that had just occurred in the kitchen. Nancy had given her a lot to consider.

“Y-yeah, but he looks like he r’lly has something to say. To youuuu”, Heather sang, pausing before she let the words trill out of her mouth. “He’s been starin’ allllll night looooong.”

“Well, I don’t really care.”

Her tone brokered no argument, but that wasn’t enough to stop the girl from bulldozing all over the careful, subtle hints to _fucking drop it _that Stevie had been laying out with the equivalent to verbal road flares.

“He looks like wan’s to eat you all up. Like-like y’re a pizza that he’s been waiting on that jus’ showed up at his door.”

And Hargrove managed to push his way past the last or the people between them at that very moment, just as she was about to threaten to key Heather’s car if she didn’t _shut the hell up already_. The guy had better never aim to work as a train conductor, because his timing was impeccably terrible.

“Ladies”, he started, breathless. Clearly, the intoxication has yet to set in, as he was still upright. He’d essentially downed the equivalent to a six pack in under a minute, there was no way he wasn’t going to regret this in the morning. He made the trajectory of his eyes obvious, lingering on the long, delicate curves of Stevie’s legs and the hint of cleavage peeking through her top. “Looking good.”

She felt her cheeks grow warm, and she fidgeted uncomfortably. She couldn’t tell if she was flattered or annoyed, but _something_ was simmering deep in her stomach, and the heat of it was beginning to show on her face.

And _that _pissed her off.

Two words. _Two words_, and she was already blushing like a middle-schooler talking to her first crush. She was going to rip the hair out of his pretty little head one day, she knew it. 

“How are we doing tonight?”

Heather giggled, elbowing Stevie sharply in the side and refusing to answer. Hargrove started her down, now less than three feet away, awaiting an answer. His cheeks were flushed from adrenaline, and he was pulling out yet another cigarette.

Another elbow to her ribs had Stevie smarting, and she begrudgingly replied with a ‘not great’, eyes fixed on the upholstery of the lawn chair cushions. Tina’s parents had gone with paisley. An interesting choice, to be sure, but the teal and magenta played nicely off of the teak wood.

_Don’t look at his chest. Don’t look at his chest. Don’t give in to him. _

“And why exactly would that be?”

She was so tempted to tell him that it was because she had to speak to him at all, or because he needed to put his nipples away before he put someone’s eye out, but Heather stepped in.

“Iss because Nancy Wheeler ‘n her got in a fight”, she announced proudly. “She got punch all on herself and then yelled a’Stevie an’left.”

“Y’know, I did see her booking it with Byers”, Hargrove cut in. “He said he’d take her home and got her into his car.”

Stevie felt her stomach drop out from under her.

Byers wasn’t bullshit, apparently. Byers was her friend—probably her best friend now that Stevie had supposedly _killed Barb herself_.

_As good as. _

It was just too much for one girl to take.

Stevie was a leaf on a bough, bending in the wind. But it was fall now, and her anchors had grown weak. A strong breeze was all it would take to blow her away.

Suppressing a sob and fighting the tears threatening to spill from her eyes, she and Hargrove locked their gazes. She knew he saw, and that this was, once more, a victory to him. The look on his face said so, at least.

“Excuse me”, she mumbled in a watery voice, carefully removing Heather’s grip on her bicep to move past Hargrove. Ignoring her protests, and something mumbled low by Hargrove as the sound of rushing filled her ears, she twisted away from the pair. She slid into the crowd, vanishing between bodies, and ended up back in the kitchen.

Pouring herself another cup of punch, she attempted to compose herself. Wiping the smudged mascara from under her eyes, she squared her shoulders and took a deep breath. Her nails were dug in the skin of her thigh, distracting her until she could breathe without her chest shuddering.

She was going to drink until tonight was about her, and not Nancy Wheeler, or Jonathan Byers.

Tonight was for Stevie Harrington.

Gulping down the punch, which had a distinctly rubbing alcohol aftertaste to it, she decided that she would drink until she remembered that, and nothing else.

][][][][][][][][][][

Stevie had always liked to play with fire.

She could remember leaning in close when George burned the leaves in the fall, playing with the flames of the candles set out at supper when her mother and father were in town, begging to have bonfires set up for her and her friends in her early teens.

So when she saw Billy Hargrove, sat on the end of a lounge chair by the pool sharing a joint with the guys’ swim team, she took one look at him and the flame was lit.

She was swimming in a sea of haze, barely treading water as the ground seemed to tilt and then right itself. The night had seen her down a flask of rum, and a half dozen cups of ‘pure fuel’. She wasn’t surprised. Stevie had a high tolerance, but even she had her limits. Tonight, she’d aimed to surpass them. She couldn’t be sober for another minute.

It was time for her to fuck up a little, because she’d been good for so long. She’d let people believe she was okay, was doing better than ever. She’d made friends with Byers and ditched Tommy and Carol. She’d let Nance trample all over her feelings, even if it hurt a _lot, it hurt a fucking lot, okay?_

“_Bullshit.”_

She deserved this. She deserved this one, little mistake.

So when she had stumbled for a moment, and she knew.

This was the moment. The perfect excuse.

And so she pretended to trip once more.

Into the lap of Billy Hargrove, who had just accepted the joint. He laughed in a short, surprised burst as she landed on his thighs, catching her with one arm and tucking the jay into the right corner of his mouth.

“And what do we have _here_?” He spoke from the left side of his mouth, teeth clenched around the filter. His eyes were wide and wild, and he still smelled like the beer he’d spat out after achieving the title of Keg King of Hawkins. But he also smelled nice under the smell of smoke, like some sort of cologne or something. She’d ‘accidentally’ pressed her face along his pectorals in the impact, breathing deep.

His earring caught the light and distracted her, dangling and swinging, glinting orange as he pulled on the joint.

“Fell over”, she mumbled, casting her eyes down and back up again, fluttering her eyelashes just once. She saw his pupils expand, and knew she had him. Not that she’d ever had a doubt.

_Hook, line and sinker_.

Smoke poured between his teeth at her words, slow and lazy. It reached tendrils over to her, drawing her in. One of his hands was wrapped around the thigh his arm was supporting, the other rested along her rib cage, warm and dangerously close to her breast.

Exactly where she wanted him.

“And what can I do for you tonight, Queen Stevie?”

Somehow, he had her pegged. He knew she was back to her old tricks, and up to no good. She fucking hated him for it. He knew exactly where to press, where it hurt.

_Time to play a little doctor. _

And so as he took another hit, eyes tracing her cleavage, the edge of her lacy bra peeking over plaid, Stevie did exactly what she should not.

She reached up and kissed the smoke out of Billy Hargrove’s mouth.

Inhaling as she parted his lips beneath hers, she gave a teasing lick along his bottom lip as she pulled back, blowing out the smoke she’d taken in.

He was giving her the look of a hungry man. Like she was the best thing he’d seen in weeks and was moments from dropping to his knees and eating her right. Up.

Her core tightened at the thought of him between her legs. It had been long since she’d last had sex, but it had been even longer since anyone had gone down on her. She wanted that. And Stevie knew, that if she wanted it, she would get it.

She raised up one hand and grabbed him by the collar, crashing his lips into hers. Kissing him properly this time, she sucked in his bottom lip, nipping it and letting it go. He growled at her, tightening his grip around her and reaching for her tits. The guys are them began to cheer, as the one to the left of Billy coughed and asked for him to pass the joint.

Billy broke away for a moment, smirking, and handed it over, resting his fingers solidly on her ass

Taking advantage of oxygen, she turned to his ear and whispered exactly what she knew he wanted to hear.

“Wanna go somewhere a bit quieter?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part two;  
Expect some changes in the tags and possibly even the rating in the near future... Chapter Three is on its way.   
I'm having too much fun with this, thanks for the great response!   
Hope you enjoy!


	3. Baby, You're a Rattlesnake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They say that real ladies wait until the third date. 
> 
> Stevie barely makes it to the third chapter.

**Wednesday October 31st, 1984**

She’d pulled him up the stairs, hand in hand, knowing his gaze would be fixated on her hips.

_Chicken legs, my ass. I knew he was just being a dick. _

Falling into the first room to the left, a pair of terrified juniors split apart, still fully clothed but disheveled, and scarpered as soon as Billy growled at them to _fuck off to a different room. _

She let him push her back onto the bed, her arms and thighs askew as he crawled over her, beer still dripping from his collar. Stevie groaned as he bit her lip and sucked in, his fingers tangling up and into her hair. His ring caught and he jerked a hunk of it into his fist trying to free himself, the pain making her arch her back and moan into his mouth. The insides of her thighs were going sticky as the sensation shot straight through to her core. She bucked her hips when he did it again, hissing out another sound of approval. He broke away from her mouth and leaned over her ear, whispering about how fucking hot that was, how he’d been wanting to do that to her since he first saw her, how he knew how tight she’d get when he did that when he was _inside her_.

_When a boy likes you, he tugs on your pigtails. _

She panted as she reached up to grab onto his shoulders and pull him down once more to her lips. When they made contact, his hands flew to her legs, wrapping them around his waist and rubbing up and down the backs of her thighs until he met the hem of her minuscule shorts. Cupping the bottom curve of her ass, he squeezed, growling and turning to suck on her neck. She gasped, her fingers digging into his shoulders as he found the spot of skin that made her knees buckle and bit it. Crying out, she writhed against him, rutting up and wrapping her legs tighter.

“Oh, so that’s how it is, huh?” he rasped, blue eyes half hooded and lips bright red and swollen. She moved against him once more, begging him in whispers to please just _fuck her already_.

“Baby girl, I’m going to do much more than that.”

With those words, his hands began to unbutton her shirt without hesitation, stripping her to her bra in seconds. She angled her chest so he could reach behind her back, one-handed and smirking as he undid the clasp just as quickly. Stevie pushed the straps away hurriedly, her pride surging as Billy made a sharp gasp at the sight of her tits, nipples hard and breasts plentiful and perky. She knew how blessed she was by genetics, and she revelled in her physical beauty when she found a partner. She was never shy when naked.

It gave her a moment of control, as she floated in a sea of pleasure and lost in the sensations coiling in the bottom of her stomach, making her want to claw him and mark him _conquered. _

Bits of Queen Stevie remained, it seemed.

His lips closed around her nipple and she groaned, distracted once more and head spinning, toes curling in their boots as he sucked and nipped, leaving her disappointed when she was no longer properly angled to grind against him. Stevie whined, fingers clutching, nails scratching into his shoulders. She knew her underwear was ruined, and she could feel the drip of her fluids in the friction she was lacking. 

“Shh… don’t worry, I’ll make you feel so good, baby girl”, he whispered, flicking at her tits with his fingers as he spoke. His right hand wandered lower, barely dipping beneath the waistband of her shorts. “Please”, she breathed. “Please.”

His pupils blown wide, he undid the top button and yanked them down to her ankles, leaving her only enough time to kick off one leg before he was back over her, one large hand cupping her dripping folds through her tights and her panties.

She’d made a wet spot on the red silk of her thong, and there was no way Billy couldn’t see it through her translucent nylons. Tapping her clit through the cloth with his middle finger, he tutted. “And what do we have here?”

Squirming, Stevie felt her cheeks flush as he stared at her, refusing to break eye contact until she responded.

“P-please… just-just touch me, already!” she pleaded, breathing heavily as he hovered over her. The anticipation was going to kill her, it had been months since she’d last gotten laid, and Billy had her beyond riled at this point. He’d picked out each of her weak spots in seconds, _by accident. _That alone was worth giving in.

“Is it all for me?” His tone was proud, and a little prideful. He knew what he did to people, the effect he had. She wouldn’t try and pretend otherwise. So she blushed and nodded, hips moving once more, trying to find his again.

“Good girl”, he cooed, one hand cupping her cheek and the other moving back to rub against her. She let out a squeal, so happy that she could chase pleasure with the promise of his touch once more. And then he reached out and tore he tights right down the middle, leaving a large hole he used to move aside her panties. She sucked in breath suddenly as he rubbed against her soft folds, searching for that spots that made her jump and shiver.

He dipped his middle finger low, hissing when he pushed it into her, pumping once. She was practically sobbing now, as he curled it in. “So fuckin’ tight, baby.”

Before she could whisper something back, he dipped in a second finger, thrusting slowly but consistently, flexing and curling into the spots she never seemed to be able to reach on her own. Stevie thrust back, her teeth clamping down around her finger as she failed to muffle a surprised screech.

“Shh…” Billy murmured, lips brushing her ear. He raised his other hand to cover her mouth “Not so loud, now. Don’t wanna ruin the night for everyone else not getting laid.”

Rolling her eyes as she knocked his hand aside,, she shot him a look of frustration, reaching up to tug his hair. “Fuck off with your immature bullshit and just make me come already, _Hargrove.”_

His teeth were out again. “_There she is_.”

And in that second, as Stevie reached down to push his hand to the right angle so she could finish this her damn self if she had to, even if it meant using his fingers to get herself off, when he started crooking his fingers once more, reaching with his second hand to rub at her clit at the just the right—_how did he know just how she liked it? _

She screeched again, hand flying to her mouth to keep louder sounds from escaping. She moved desperately against him, her other hand pinching at her nipple and rolling as he made her shudder.

He moved his lips back to that spot he’d discovered on her neck, this time nipping at it as he flicked her clit and rubbed that spot inside her that made her—made her—

A rush of sound filled Stevie’s ears as she thrashed under him, screaming out an orgasm that made her _zing _with endorphins and knew would leave her pelvis twitching long after it was over.

“Fuck—“

She was cut off when Billy, a wicked grin on his face, dipped his head down low and, still making eye contact, licked one, slow, agonizing strip up her pussy.

Stevie cursed, her eyes rolling back. She knew her pupils were getting a prime view of the back of skull as Billy Hargrove tongued her slit and sucked at her clit. She felt warm like honey in hot milk, liquid and just ready for _anything he wanted her to do, but just please, please, please fuck her already—_

He started to move his fingers once more, and he would’ve been smirking if he hadn’t been buried in her folds, laving them with the flat of his tongue and using the point to trace the edges. His fingers were relentless, twisting inside of her in ways that made her reach down to grab his hair and hold his head to her core.

For a moment, he stopped, leaning a stubbly cheek on the side of her thigh while she moaned pitifully about him getting back to it. “You taste like apple pie, baby girl. Could for this all night long and not get tired.”

Stevie’s knees gave a shake, unstable as they’d become. And then she twisted her hands in his hair and shoved his head back where it belonged so she didn’t have to hear him open his mouth, because _who the hell has a vagina that tastes like pastry? _

His words had sent all kinds of feelings straight to her core, but _damn, _if this wasn’t better when he shut up and she could pretend she wasn’t about to screw the biggest asshole at Hawkins High and _enjoy every last second of it_.

She could have rolled her eyes at both him and her own terrible choices, if he wasn’t too busy making her close them in ecstasy as he brought her closer and closer to a second peak. He was unrelenting, licking and sucking and thrusting without any restraint, just desperately trying to make her come again. She wanted to feel this fucking good forever.

_Holy shit. _

And there it was; that ‘thing he could do with his tongue’ that had made the girls titter and swoon.

This was someone who knew his way around a woman, who had spent time and _care—_though he’d likely deny it to the end of time—learning to make a woman feel _pleasure. _

Stevie had been around the block.

She’d had her time dating a sophomore as a freshman, letting his hands teach hers how to touch, as she showed him where his needed to please her. She’d grit her teeth and taught him patience, and how to let her take what she needed before he finished. Stevie had always enjoyed a good orgasm, and now that she was having real sex, she was damned if she was going to fake it.

She took what she needed, and nothing more.

Admittedly, she hadn’t been very generous with many of the boys she’d slept with, at least in the past. But holy fuck, if he kept doing that thing with his tongue, Stevie Harrington would drop to her knees and suck Billy Hargrove’s dick the second after he made her come.

Her hands still in his hair, she pressed him closer against her folds, bucking her hips as he groaned into her. He was staring up, blue eyes half-open but searing into her, lashes thick and her gaze unwavering. He was looking into her eyes as he reached up, snaking an arm up between her breasts to reach around the base of her throat with firm but gentle pressure and she—

Stevie came so hard that she felt it run through her toes, back curled in a bend and hips shuddering. She felt herself gush a bit against his fingers as he continued to move them inside her, his eyes still fixed on her but his face once more level with hers. It was only at his proud, smug grin that she realized she’d screamed his name while peaking and was powerless to defend the action as she was still assaulted by pleasure in the last moments of her second orgasm.

Regaining her breath after a few moments spent panting, Stevie sat up on her elbows, cheeks aflame and ready to tell him to fuck the hell off and that it wasn’t her damn fault that him making continuous eye contact while making her come hadn’t led to any sort of victory, just her _screaming his name_—

Fuck. He’d won this one too. He knew it, she knew it.

And yet, she was still ready to suck him off.

That was, until-

“_COPS!_”

The yell echoed through the house as the music cut off and she heard the sounds of a hundred teens scuttling away. Cursing loudly, she lunged past Billy and scrambled to find her shorts and shirt and boots and _get the hell out of here_.

“Fuck!” Billy exclaimed, finally catching on and buckling his jeans, yanking his leather jacket out from where he’d discarded behind him on the bed. He yanked it on as Stevie tried to shimmy into her Daisy Dukes and pull on her boots at the same time. She hurried to button up her shirt, tucking the edges in almost barely when a cop came bursting into the room, badge out and nightstick at the ready.

“_Fuck”, _Billy shouted once more. His hands went up and he glared at the police officer, who already had a pair of handcuffs out. Stevie reluctantly allowed hers to do the same, trying to ignore how the rush from her adrenaline pumping and the tail end of the really good orgasm made for a _tremendous _high. That, or the pot in that joint was way stronger than she’d anticipated.

She groaned, realizing the exact situation she was in. _Fuck is right,_ she thought as the deputy cuffed the pair of them together and began to read them their rights.

_Fuck is right. _

][][][][][][][

She hated the lighting in the police station. It really did nothing for her.

“Look, if you’re not going to charge me with anything, officer, I don’t think there’s anything to be done here”, she said in a tone sweeter than she took her coffee. She knew her rights, and she was damned if she was going to let some rookie nail her with an underage drinking offence. They’d only just passed that stupid fucking law, anyways, and no judge in Hawkins would bring up Sarah Harrington’s kid on a newly passed bill.

Stevie cursed whatever politician it had been to suggest it.

Of course, the year she’s about to turn eighteen, they go and raise the drinking age to twenty-one. She can’t win, can she?

“I’ll take it from here, Phil.”

Jim Hopper’s voice was a welcome sound in a police precinct full of drunk and disorderly teenagers. She’d been listening to Whitney J. whine for the better part of half an hour about how her parents would ‘freaking kill her’ and was ready to fish through the cop’s mug of pencils for ones sharp enough to drive through her eardrums. The night’s drinking had begun to wear on her, and now that the haze of her euphoria was behind her, she was really beginning to regret dropping into Hargrove’s lap.

But she also knew that he was about to give her shit. Because she should know better. Because she should _be _better. Hop didn’t even have to say it for her to feel oddly upset, not only with the situation but her own behaviour.

_I’m not angry, just disappointed. _

“C’mon kid, you know better than this”, he said, plopping down in the chair next to her. He put his hat down on the desk and took a swig from the mug he had in hand. Stevie could smell the coffee from where she sat, and it was strong enough to tempt her to gag.

Checking the clock, she saw that it was past 2 a.m.

“Sorry they dragged you out of bed for this”, she responded sheepishly, slouched down in her chair. She could feel him take in her appearance and winced. Her hair was a mess, her shirt wasn’t buttoned right and she’d gotten her boots on the wrong feet in her haste to find clothing. She could also feel a hickey throbbing on the left side of her neck. “Really sorry they bothered you with this.”

Hopper sighed deeply, leaning back in his chair. “Kid, I just… I just don’t know what you’re doing here. You have your shit together for college, and since Joyce tells me you weren’t even going to pass last year, I think that that’s great. But this…”

He trailed off, hands spread to emphasize his words.

“This, I don’t know if we can work with.”

Her cheeks burned, and her eyes were firmly glued to the tips of her boots. Damn it, she’d scuffed them in her hurry either to get them off or get them back on. “You can’t fix _stupid._”

And there it was. She knew she’d fucked up.

“‘M sorry”, she managed, mumbling. “I’ll try and make better choices.”

Taking a deep breath, the Chief ran a hand over his face, scrubbing at the stubble that had a permanent address on his chin. He looked tired. Nodding absentmindedly, he accepted her response.

“Look… I know you’re dealing with a lot, between last year and college applications. I’m not gonna give you a ticket or anything tonight. I don’t wanna add to your pile of shit”, he continued. “Are your parents in town at the moment?”

Shaking her head vigorously, she felt herself go pale. He couldn’t call her father. He _wouldn’t. _

“I just need someone to drive you home… I have to help out with kicking the rest of you kids into line. Got too many phone calls to make and angry parents to talk to, so I guess I can just call Jonathan—“

“No!”

Hopper looked taken aback at her sudden and visceral response. He didn’t know that she couldn’t bear to see Byers tonight, to acknowledge that in their sad little trio, she was the odd one out. She didn’t want a reminder of how little she actually fit in, when it came down to it. She couldn’t admit to him that she was still very much _not okay_, and that part of the reason behind that laid with Nancy Wheeler and Jonathan Byers.

They’d always been better than her. That had never been a secret.

But she couldn’t bear to admit that even when she was trying her best to be good, trying so goddamned hard, it still wasn’t good enough.

So instead, she searched the precinct for someone, _anyone _who could pass as sober enough to drop her home. She didn’t care what she had to do to get them to do it, but she was not going to call Jonathan Byers for a lift. Not tonight.

Tammy, slumped over on the officer’s desk, was an obvious no. So was Michael R. from the student council, who was currently crying on the phone with his folks, and Garry L. from last year’s Spanish III had his head buried in a trash bin. The pickings were slim.

And then her eyes locked onto Billy Hargrove, arguing with a deputy about whether he had to get his father involved or if he could just pay the fucking fine and move on with his life, please and thank you. She winced, remembering her last few moments with him before they’d been arrested, and reconsidered asking him.

But then Stevie realized that Hopper was still looking at her expectantly, even a little worriedly. She needed an excuse to get out of here, _now. _

“I had a date to the party, and I don’t want to take Byers away from his kid brother. He said they were going trick or treating together tonight, and after last year…” she let her words trail off, and looked up at Hopper with sad eyes.

Huffing, he set his mug down. “Look, I don’t know what kind of shit you kids have going on and frankly, I don’t really _care_ so long as no one ends up with a broken nose and a concussion again. Just… you said you had a date? Can he drive you home?”

“If you let him out of handcuffs, sure”, she shot back, arms crossed. She gave Hargrove a meaningful look as she held out her wrist and let the Chief dig out the keys to unlock them from where they were tethered to the chair. “He’s sitting over there.”

Cursing under his breath, Hopper shook his head. “I thought we were making better choices.”

She shook her head, sweet smile back on her face to placate the man. “I don’t quite know what you’re talking about.”

Scowling, he shot her a look of disbelief.

“That kid’s already got two speeding tickets and now a warning for public intoxication”, he responded. She shrugged. “People make mistakes.”

“Stevie, he’s been in town for _less than a week.”_

She shrugged again. “People make mistakes.”

Groaning, Hopper pinched the bridge of his nose.

“I’ll grant you that he seems sober enough to argue with Riley about his bail money, so he’s probably actually your safest choice in here. The rest… you kids really don’t know how to keep your shit together, huh?”

Stevie shrugged again, innocent. Her shoulders were starting to get sore. Hopefully he’d just let this one slide, she could see him ready to cave and how it would only take one little push to get her out of here.

“He seems to know how to keep his shit together. At least, under the circumstances”, she offered. He knew that this was the only way she was getting out of calling Byers to drop her home. And she knew that he had a soft spot for their family, and that she hadn’t been wrong about Byers taking his little brother out on Halloween. At least, _she_ hadn’t. Clearly, his attendance at the party said otherwise.

“Small fuckin’ towns”, the Chief muttered. He took a heavy swing of coffee and set his mug down. Grabbing a pen, he scrawled a signature on a form, and turned it over to her. “Fill it out.”

She took the ballpoint and dated and signed her release form, smirking at Hargrove when she looked back up again. He’d settled down as Hopper had given the officer a ‘c’mere’ gesture and then instructed him to arrange for Hargrove to be let out without even a fine.

They were returned their personal belongings, as well as his keys, and let out with a warning not to be caught doing this again. That got them an extra ‘keep-your-shit-in-line’ look from the deputy who’d been processing Hargrove, as he’d been the one to arrest them in the first place.

Hopper placed a hand on her shoulder, giving her a meaningful expression as Hargrove tossed his keys up in the air and caught them over and over, waiting for her to climb in already.

“Make better choices, Stevie. You know that you’re better than this. Don’t let all of the shit you’re dealing with bury you”, he said, voice quiet. “Don’t be like me.”

She nodded in fast, jerking motions, before reaching out to give the older man a quick hug. He’d huffed in surprise and hadn’t reciprocated, arms held at an awkward angle as she pulled away quickly.

“I promise.”

Waving goodbye, she climbed into the passenger seat of Hargrove’s Camaro, sliding into the leather interior.

“How’d you even swing this, baby girl? Small town cops have such a hard-on for making their quotas, there’s no way you got us out of there without a favour”, Hargrove said as he started the engine. She’d kind of wanted a ride in his car ever since he’d first pulled up in it, and she was finally intoxicated enough to admit it to herself. It was a beautiful machine.

Stevie smirked, buckling her seatbelt. “I have friends in high places.”

“Sure thing, baby”, he shot back, his brow furrowed as he revved the engine. He could see Hopper watching on, waiting for them to leave and for her to be home safe. She knew he’d call to make sure she made it.

They drove off, with her offering quiet directions to Loch Nora.

“But like seriously, did you offer to blow him or something? I’ve been trying to get them off my ass since I got to this shitty little podunk town”, he cut in. His smile was teasing, but his tone was not.

He genuinely thought that she’d…

Shivering in disgust, she sat straight and told him to turn off at the next exit. Hopper had been a lifeline for those of them that had survived last Halloween. The man wanted to protect his town and the people living in it and was a _good person_. She’d never even consider that he’d exchange sexual favours for bail, let alone that _she_ would. Undoing her seatbelt, she knew she couldn’t stay another second in this car with this douchebag.

“You can drop me off here.”

Her tone was final, and her arms were crossed.

“Babe, this is the middle of nowhere. Where the fuck is your house?” His voice was grating on her nerves. “Let me drop you home. And if you’re up for a little round two, I won’t say no to that…”

“First of all”, she started angrily, turning to face him. “I’m not your ‘baby girl’. I’m Stevie fucking Harrington, and I still rule this shitty little podunk town. Second, Hopper is old enough to be my dad, and _no, I did not offer to suck his dick_, and finally, thanks to you implying the second, _I will never offer to suck your dick, either_. Now let me out of the goddamn car or I’m going to jump!”

She tried to yank the lock out of the door, hands scrabbling to get it open as they kept driving at fifty miles an hour. She was getting desperate to escape the situation she’d landed herself in and was making no effort to conceal it.

“_Fine!_” he shouted back, crashing his fists down on the steering wheel and letting the car come or a screeching halt. “Have it your way, you frigid bitch! I hope you like walking!”

Slamming the door behind her, she crossed her arms tightly around her chest and started to trudge singleminded to her house, a twenty-minute walk from this turn-off. Her hands were shaking, and she was walking crookedly, but she was out of the car, out of the precinct, out of that _party that made her want to scream about her stupid decisions and how stupid she was—_

Hargrove honked his horn, making her jump. She hated herself for it.

Just more weaknesses for him to pick at.

It was dark, and her hands were shaking and empty. She should never have gone out tonight. Nancy wouldn’t have had her meltdown in public, she wouldn’t have given in to the hypnotic sight of Hargrove’s pecs and she wouldn’t be walking alone through the dark without her bat to keep her company.

As the Camaro tore off into the night, Stevie clutched at herself and walked faster, praying that she’d make it home before she sobered up enough to remember what the Demogorgon looked like. 

][][][][][][][][

**Thursday November 1st, 1984**

When Stevie rolled out of bed the next morning, already late and resigned to missing homeroom again, she made a decision.

She typed up a resume instead of attending P.E. and brought it to the town library to make copies. She then went around, handing them out until she almost forgot that she had a pop quiz in English at the end of the day, and swim practice after school.

_So much for making better choices. _

She returned to Hawkins High, weary and with two job interviews and a phone call arranged for next weekend. She also returned with coffee and a breakfast sandwich bagel, just in time for her class at 1:15. She walked into Branson’s lecture in sunglasses and just a hair late; just enough to set off the usual titters and whispers.

Removing her shades, she wouldn’t give them even an inch. She knew she looked great, she’d spent an hour beating her hungover grimace into something far more gorgeous than should have been achievable with some makeup and a few well-places slaps to her own cheeks to remind her to stay conscious.

But she also knew that Carrie P. had seen her drag Hargrove into Tina’s parents’ room, and that there was no way that the guys from the swim team weren’t already spreading around how she’d just up and fallen into their new star’s lap and laid one on him.

She was at a disadvantage, sure. But she’d seen shittier odds and survived, had come out on top to tell the tale.

She had faced down the stuff of nightmares with a baseball bat and hit a home run when it got down to brass tacks. She could handle a few high school kids and their gossip.

She’d been called everything in the book leading up to that moment. She’d heard them all, even the ones they thought they hid behind cupped hands and snuck into ears in the hallways behind her back.

They’d call her a slut, of that she was sure. She’d heard it in Sophomore, Junior and now Senior year. It wasn’t her fault that they didn’t get creative enough to actually land a hit.

_No, actually. Not unless their name is Nancy Wheeler. _

Who she wasn’t going to allow to get the best of her, either. Stevie was cool, calm and collected. She was in control.

That, and her her eyeliner was so perfect it would make them _cry_.

Tammy, conveniently located to her left, tossed her a note. The smirk on her face and the blush on her cheeks told Stevie all she needed to know. She didn’t even have to open the folded paper to know what she was going to ask.

Sighing, she did it anyways.

**So how was the ride? I heard that Billy Hargrove has a HUGE dick. **

If anything, at least high school was predictable. When everything else went to shit, she could rely on her peers to stay the same, year after year. Those little shits.

She’d long ago learned that denial was just a gateway to further speculation, and more vicious rumours about how freaky in bed she was. Not that she wasn’t, clearly, her quick romp with the asshole had proven that, but she wasn’t about to let the whole of the student body in on that secret.

So instead, she did what Queen Stevie did best, ice and untouchable in her ivory tower.

**Didn’t get to see it. **

Throwing it back, she waited for the sheet’s return, peppered with Tammy’s question marks, punctuated with little love hearts.

**He was too busy crying after he saw my tits. He never got it out. **

Tammy’s reply was exactly as she’d known. She’d had this conversation a dozen times. Enough times to know when to push and pull, and to pick at the strings they were too distracted by her lights show to notice her plucking.

**There’s no way! You’re messing with me! **

Making a brief moment of eye contact, she grinned saucily and passed it back, licking her lips as she did so for emphasis. Tammy giggled and looked at what she’d written.

**No, he didn’t. But it was a close thing. I actually didn’t get to see his dick cause he… couldn’t get it up. **

Tammy’s mouth opened in a gape, eyes wide and attentive. She had her, and in this, Stevie knew, she had the ear of everyone who cared about it at Hawkins High. And that was where the true power laid.

**Oh my god! I can’t believe it! Justine said that he was so good though!**

Stevie knew that she had to play this card carefully. He had a reputation. But then again, so did she, and though the memories of Hawkins’ residents were short, the town’s history was long, and she had never left these borders. She had the upper hand.

**Yeah… could’ve been the beer. Or maybe the cigarettes. Did you know that the Surgeon General says that smoking more than a pack a day kills your libido and sperm count? Either way, I’m just disappointed. **

_There. _Educational _and _entertaining. She could do it all.

Settling back in her seat, she ignored Tammy’s further attempts to discuss the last night’s events, trying to pay attention to her Social Studies teacher outlining the intricacies of Victorian expansion. Though she’d dealt with this elegantly, _professionally_, even, she knew that this was still Queen Stevie behind the wheel. And it was time for her to move to the backseat, and make room for someone better.

Or at least, someone who could pass History.

][][][][][][][][][.

“Come on, Harrington! You know you’re better than this!”

Coach Grant was unsatisfied with her times and was threatening to chuck his stopwatch in the shallow end. His complexion had gotten redder and redder as he’d asked her to run the same laps over and over, until she felt like she was going in circles instead of swimming. The problem wasn’t that Stevie was any slower than her usual, it was that Hargrove was _still _showing her up. And with _ease_.

He’d sat back with the boys’ team that day, eyes fixed on her as usual. Though unlike the previous hunger that had laid there, instead a stormy look had taken over. He looked like he wanted to throw her from the high dive onto the concrete edge of the pool. There was no denying that the new rumour about Billy Hargrove’s _equipment_ being defective had clearly reached his ears. They hadn’t exactly parted on fantastic times the night before, either.

As she’d wandered into the pool, writing her hair out from her shower, he sneered as she walked past his seat on the bleachers. Ignoring him with a small smile, she kept a steady pace and continued as if he hadn’t clearly been talking about giving it to her good the other night before she’d showed up.

He could talk all he wanted, but now he knew that she had the upper hand. If she’d denied it ever happening, things would have spiralled far from her control, but in admitting to the deed, she could say _whatever she wanted to. _

She’d won this one, and he knew it.

“I don’t know what I ever saw in you! I don’t know in what universe I could have ever thought you were our lead, but it sure isn’t this one!”

She wasn’t winning this time, though.

She felt hot tears pricking at the corners of her eyes, because she _was_ keeping up. She hadn’t even let up on her training regimen, even with her less than perfect sleep schedule. She had fought, against her demons for this and won, and it still wasn’t good enough.

No matter how much effort she put in here, she knew deep down that Hargrove would beat her out. He must’ve spent all of his time in the water—she couldn’t even see tan lines on that digustingly flawless chest. She bet he waxed it too, the vain prick. But that didn’t change the fact that having an ocean on your backyard was an advantage she couldn’t beat. Even with her parents’ pool at home, she could only replicate that six months out of the year.

That, and she was loath to admit it, but the bastard had raw talent in spades.

This wasn’t something she could control.

So she squared her shoulders, nodded without looking up and took a deep breath. She could control her, and her alone here; she knew this. That was what she had once loved about this, what had once made her the best. So she would do what she always had, and there was nothing more that could be done.

The sensation of her nails in the skin on her leg grounded her, reminded her that she was here and now. Stevie had fought for her life and won. That hadn’t been the end, and neither was this.

She went to dive back in, to try her best and her hardest like she always had, but was interrupted by the pool doors slamming open.

“Stevie!”

Nancy Wheeler, full of fury, had decided to grace her with her presence in her moment of the greatest shame in her athletic career. Clearly, she was taking lessons in terrible timing from Billy Hargrove, who had paused between his own laps to watch closely as Nance stalked over.

“We need to talk.”

Burying the heels of her hands into her eyes, she sighed. “Can this wait a little bit? I’m kind of in the middle of something at the moment.”

Turning her glare from Stevie to Coach Grant, she stared at him until he gave a shaky nod and stepped away. Grabbing her by the hand, Nancy dragged her back to the entrance to the girls’ changing room. It was a very poor bid for privacy.

“What are you doing here?” Stevie was not pulling any punches today. She was fresh out of patience.

“What do you think?” she hissed, giving her a look of confusion. “You never picked me up this morning! I missed first period!”

Stevie was not pleased. Her friendship was a give-and-take relationship, she didn’t hand out rides to people who didn’t even _consider _her as a friend. She also was slightly nauseous, on the verge of tears already from Coach Grant’s reaming, and battling her conscience.

As the day had worn on, her hangover had gotten progressively worse, and she was craving her usual fix-me-up; an English breakfast from Benny’s, a bit of pot and tobacco hand-rolled in a cigarette before a shower and a knee-knocking orgasm. She couldn’t have any of the first two, not until much later, but her brain had this tiny little voice reminding her of how talented Hargrove’s fingers had been and _oh god_, _his tongue_. She had to shake the thought as it entered her mind passively when she saw him towelling off his hair, muscles of his back flexing and the lines on his hips sharp against the waistband of his speedo.

She was angry at herself for even thinking it.

She should be above this shit already. She should have left last night behind her with the handcuffs at the police station.

But with her new resolve already being tested, and Nancy getting in her face, Stevie had had enough.

“Figured Byers would take you.” Her tone was cold, and her expression closed.

“What do you mean?”

“Jesus, you really can’t handle your alcohol”, Stevie muttered. “You remember going to Tina’s party last night? Do you remember what happened at all?”

“I remember dancing… and spilling some punch… you got mad at me because I was drunk”, Nancy said slowly, Stevie’s anger rising as she came out with more words. “… and then you took me home.”

“No, you see”, she replied, laughing humourlessly and shaking her head. “That’s where your mind gets a little bit fuzzy. That was your _other _friend who took you home. That was Jonathan.”

“I don’t understand.” Her expression spoke of confusion and annoyance. Stevie kind of wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake until she remembered the hurt she’d caused.

“It’s pretty simple, Nancy”, she mumbled, ducking her head and avoiding her stare. “You just tell it like it is.”

“What?” Nancy was really starting to wear on her, now more than ever.

“Oh, apparently we killed Barb, and I don’t care because I’m bullshit… and apparently, our whole-whole friendship is just bullshit. Apparently, it’s all just bullshit, bullshit, bullshit!”

She was getting choked up, frustrated with the tears that wouldn’t crawl back up into her ducts and vanish. Nancy didn’t _get _to see her like this. She didn’t _deserve _to see Stevie vulnerable. Not after what she had said. Not after what she knew it would do to her.

“Oh, and also, you don’t care about me”, she added, her mouth tight and her hands shaking. Her thigh was itching, and she began to dig her nails in so she could ignore the sensation of hot tears welling up. “And apparently, I’m just fine and dandy while you’re the only one who’s still dealing with this.”

Nancy was starting to look upset, and guilty. So, it might _finally _be sinking in that she’d really fucking hurt her with that. _Good_.

“I was drunk, Stevie! I don’t remember any of that!” She seemed at a loss for what to do, a helpless expression pasted on while she tried to defend how she’d torn their entire relationship to shreds in the span of a few hours.

Stevie didn’t care.

“It doesn’t matter if you don’t remember it! It matters that you said it! Or is that just bullshit too?”

“Yes!” Nancy’s tone was assertive; certain. Her expression didn’t match it.

“Then tell me!” Stevie pleaded, on her last legs. She was running out of excuses for Nancy to brush off. “Tell me that you care about me. Tell me that you love me too!”

“Really?”

It felt like a punch to the gut.

This girl, who she’d trusted with _everything_, who had seen parts of herself she wasn’t ready to show the world and might never be, who she thought she’d loved and trusted, had betrayed her with a word.

Somehow, this was worse than the initial attack at the party. At least then, she’d had the excuse of intoxication. But she could see it now.

Nancy Wheeler had grown hard, and had nothing left to give her. Her face sported a look of casual amusement, cruel and unassuming as it was. She was _laughing at her. _

The tone of disbelief in her voice sealed the whole deal in stone for her, right then and there.

It said, _Really Stevie? You really thought I would give you these things that you want? You pathetic, needy, useless dyke—_

“Harrington!” Danny P. had half-jogged over, trying to not to run and break pool rules. “Grant wants you back in the water!”

She hesitated, seeing the cowed look in Nancy’s eyes, wanting her to _want _forgiveness.

Wanting her to love her too.

Wanting her to feel anything but the contempt she knew she was living in this moment. She could see it in her face.

But that was something she knew she’d never have. Not in any way, shape or form. Not after last night.

“C’mon! He’s kicking all our asses because of that douchebag, we need you back!”

Looking at the girl she’d once made a fool of herself over, Stevie looked away, back to the pool. Shouldering past Nancy, she made her choice.

“Looks like you’re the one who’s _bullshit_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Figures, I'd give Stevie 'The Hair' Harrington a hair-pulling kink. 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed, and I'll have more for y'all soon :)


	4. In the Mist, Dark Figures Move and Twist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stevie really needs some new friends if she’s spending her Saturday night arguing with a thirteen year-old about Darth Vader.

**Thursday November 1st, 1984**

“Again, Harrington!”

Stevie was not having a good day.

In fact, she was barely holding it together by that point. Focusing on her breathing, she completely missed Coach Grant’s demand that she swim the same ten laps over 

Her mind was spinning, set off-balance by Nancy’s clear and public rejection. She knew that on some level, it held implications she couldn’t even begin to address.

After the night of her pool party last year, Nance had been non-committal about her feelings towards a request that they extend their romp into a real, concrete relationship, claiming that she wasn’t interested in _anyone, _and therefore wasn’t saying no but also wasn’t saying yes.

She’d strung her along, yes, but could Stevie really blame her?

Nancy Wheeler had barely even contemplated dating by the point she’d asked, and was navigating uncharted waters. She’d never been with anyone, let alone had to decide whether she was even attracted to Stevie. There was no guarantee that she was one way, or the other, or even both, like her. But the one thing that she did know was that even if Barb had been a casualty of that fateful night, she had rocked Nancy Wheeler’s world; that, she knew for certain.

Stevie was an ace at giving head. She had honed her tongue in every sense of the word, and refused to be ashamed of it. She showed her work and got the right answer, every time.

So even after the craze of last fall had died down, she and Nancy had snuck moments with their fingers tangled in each others’ in the quiet dark of her basement, and shared the bed in the guest bedroom because it was a queen sized mattress that they could sprawl over for hours, kissing slow and sweet. They’d kept their hands innocent and their consciences clear, but it had never been anything more than that.

They existed in the confines of the empty Harrington house, and only on the nights where Nancy felt weak. Where she felt vulnerable.

Luckily for Stevie, Nancy didn’t have a lot of strong nights after Halloween of ’83.

But that was over, now.

“Are you deaf as well as slow now, Harrington?” Grant shouted, blowing his whistle to punctuate his question. Stevie jumped, wincing at the sound and how the reaction forced her muscles to tense in a painful twinge.

“I don’t care what kind of argument you and your girlfriend are having over Jonathan Byers, but you leave that shit at the door when you _GO AGAIN, HARRINGTON!”_

Fuck, she was really about to cry.

But she couldn’t, not right then, so she dove back into the water, her breathing a mess and her stroke sloppier than she’d let herself get in years. She barely finished the laps before she felt her breathing de-regulate and her world start to spin.

She knew that if she was on solid ground and dry, she would be able to feel the sweat forming on her upper lip, her heart pounding so hard that she could feel her pulse in her fingers. She could feel herself breathing faster and faster, until none of the air felt like it was still filling her chest.

Panicking, she dove under again, sitting at the bottom of the pool on breathless lungs like she’d done back when she’d played water polo, back when it wasn’t a point of contention to her father if she fought tooth and nail for something that wasn’t going to kill her. She sat there until her rib cage started screaming and her lips were numb from being bitten, until she knew that if she stayed down any longer, they’d be sending someone after to come and get her.

Kicking off, she floated back to the top, tears hidden by the wet gleam of her skin and the panic drowned in the shallow end. She let herself lounge on her back for a moment as sound became a reality again.

“—and if you’re done being a drama queen, I want you to cool down and hit the showers!” Grant yelled, cutting in and out as her head bobbed in and out of the water.

She breathed in, and breathed out. Laid back in a dead man’s float, she stared until the pool lights made her see little sunspots through her goggles. She drifted for what felt like an eternity before she could even attempt to summon the strength to haul herself out.

“Hey, Harrington.”

Billy Hargrove was standing on the edge of the pool in her lane.

He was also smoking a cigarette despite his dripping hair. Gross, she thought, imagining how his damp fingers must be spoiling the smoke, getting the paper damp and the filter droopy. But what really surprised her was the lack of confrontation in his stance. He wasn’t scowling, or surrounded by the boys as she’d expect him to be if he’d come over for a few parting shots.

If only for the latter, she was grateful. She couldn’t handle anything more today, or she might just break.

But from the lack of manic, angry energy that usually surrounded him when he was trying to one-up her, she could tell that this wasn’t him getting in her face. No, this was because he wanted something. And that was the closest that Billy Hargrove would ever come to approaching her without aggression or that wild attempt at living out some misguided lack of awareness of his own mortality.

He was approaching her with a quiet voice and alone, away from the eyes that would make this an attack.

This was a _peace offering. _

“What do you want, Hargrove?”

She remained floating, giving him no more than a cursory glance. She was exhausted. It was too early for her to deal with this.

It might be almost 5pm, but it was _still too early for her to deal with this. _

Stevie needed some sleep.

“I just wanted you to know that I didn’t spread any rumors. Y’know, about us hooking up, or whatever”, he said, flicking ash into the pool.

She wanted to laugh in his face and would have, had she not been absolutely exhausted and drained. He was doing this because he expected her to be someone who _cared_ about rumours about her sex life being spread around like peanut butter on toast. It was out there long before he decided to open his mouth in the locker room, and she’d already taken all of the requisite steps for damage control. He was trying to get back into her good graces, and he’d chosen the wrong route.

“Mmhmm, and that’s exactly why you were discussing what shade of pink my pussy is with Masterson and Jacobs before I walked in.” Her tone was sarcastic, unbothered, and she wrinkled her nose as the ash sizzled in the water. “That’s unsanitary, do you mind?”

After a moment of silence in which he took another drag of his cigarette, Hargrove laughed, his shoulders shook and his eyes scrunched shut.

“All right, I guess I underestimated you, Harrington. You caught me, I may have answered a few questions”, he admitted after he calmed down. “But everyone already knew about what went down before I even got to homeroom. So if you think that I’m the one spreading shit around…”

“A dozen people saw me suck your face off outside at the party, and then another seven or eight witnessed us heading upstairs, not to mention those kids you kicked out when we got down to it”, she reminded him placidly. “Besides, I couldn’t care less what you say. Whatever you have to say about our time together, it’s been said at least a hundred times before.”

He made a face at that, probably thinking of all of the past sexcapades Carol had definitely filled him in on.

Distantly, she wondered if she’d bothered bringing up the time they’d had a regretful threesome with Tommy after a few too many shots of a new liquor called ‘tequila’ that her dad had gotten a few bottles of and forgotten about. They’d brought some to a party, and had promptly gotten absolutely trashed. That night had been the first (and only, because god she would never again) time she’d done coke. It had burned deep in her sinuses despite the alcohol, and she’d smiled, clapped her hands in delight, and asked for another line. Then, they’d all tumbled into bed together, and though it had been a fun mess at the time, she’d awoken the next morning and sworn off of both tequila and cocaine that very instant.

Hanging out with Carol and Tommy in the following weeks had been awkward to say the least. What were they supposed to talk about? It wasn’t like she could just space out and go, _you know, Carol, I must say that your fingering technique is better than I ever considered_, or, _Tommy, do you always grab Carol’s ass when you do her from behind, or is that something you cooked up just for me?_

Yeah, no. Stevie was glad she didn’t do shit like that anymore.

At least, she wasn’t _supposed_ to be doing shit like that anymore, she reminded herself guiltily, harshly brought back to earth by the fact that she’d done _exactly_ that the night before.

“Well, no complaints here, Harrington. Whoever broke you in did it right, and I know what I’m talking about”, he commented casually, as if he hadn’t asked her if she’d offered to suck off a cop to get out of a ticket and then promptly called her a frigid bitch. “I mean, apart from not actually getting to get off and the next thing I know, bitches are asking me if I’ve spoken to my doctor about my little _problem_?”

His voice became mildly acerbic at the last sentence, and Stevie let her feet touch the tiled floor of the pool and she righted herself. Removing her goggles and cap, she moved closer to where he stood, a sweet smile on her face.

“Why Billy, why ever would that have anything to do with me?”

He scoffed. “I get it, _Queen Stevie,_ you’re still on top here.”

His eyes running over her torso, assessing her. His mouth bloomed into a smirk, and he shook his head with a laugh.

“But don’t think you have me fooled, you enjoyed your time _under me_ a little too much to pull off that blasé shit with me, baby girl.”

The tips of her ears were probably blushing red, she could feel them heat up along with her cheeks. She was annoyed, now. Yes, she’d had fun. Too much fun, clearly, if it had ended in her screaming his name as she came before he even whipped it out.

“Again, not your baby girl, but I won’t deny that I had fun”, Stevie ground out, pausing. “ It’s just such a shame you had to open your mouth and ruin a good thing before it _really _got good.”

Thinking back to what she’d wanted to do to him, to have him do to her, she felt a jolt of heat to her stomach. She would have given him the best night of his life if he’d just shut that big fucking mouth of his and put it back on her core, where it belonged…

“And exactly how would you have made it worth my while?” Hargrove was teasing her, challenging her to rise to meet him. It was a cheap tactic, but one that she was sure to fall for. She really hated how easily he pushed her buttons. “I got you off twice, babe, so what would you have done to even up the score?”

Stevie pretended to contemplate what she would have done, as if it hadn’t been playing on an endless reel inside of her head for all of the lecture portion of her English class. She really, really hated how he’d had to go and fuck things up like he had. They could have had so much fun before she had set in stone that she wasn’t going to be the petty bitch she’d always been.

_Too bad, so sad. _

But that wouldn’t stop her from having a little bit of fun on her own.

“Well after giving you the best head of your pathetic life”, she began, slow and full on intent, watching closely as he bit his lip and shot her a look full of heat. “I would have let you do pretty much whatever you wanted to me, since you clearly know what you’re doing.”

His fists clenched and unclenched, and she saw him breathe in sharply through his nose.

“And then probably suck you off again to make sure you really understood how _grateful_ I would be”, she finished, shooting a quick glance down at his crotch and looking back up to stare into his eyes. Boys always ate that move right up.

Her voice was a raspy drawl, and she knew her nipples were definitely showing through her one-piece. _Damn it_, she thought. _He always seems to be there when I’m feeling horny and low. His timing is absolute trash. _

_But he’s also so, so pretty, and has made you come more in five minutes than anyone who’s not your right hand has all year. _

The devil on her shoulder was whispering into her ear, and Stevie was listening, stomach tight and thighs clenching. She was within _spitting distance _of that orgasm she knew would get rid of her pounding headache, she could see it in the way Hargrove twitched in his speedo as he crouched down, pupils dilated and eyes so hungry and so _blue. _

Hargrove reached out a hand to help her up, pulling her out of the water with barely a strain and she was reminded of how stupidly beautiful his big meathead muscles made him.

Holding her close to him, she had even more bare skin pressed up against him than she had when he’d had his tongue inside of her, she could feel the warmth emanating from his body where it touched her own. His eyelashes were wet and stuck together in spikes, his lips red and his face so close to her own that she barely had to move forward to just go to kiss—

Better decisions, she reminded herself. She was raw right then, she knew. Nancy had just ended their little _whatever_, and she’d done it in public. She was hurting, and looking for someone to fill the gap.

“But that was before you told me you thought I’d blow a cop almost three times my age, and before you called me a frigid bitch, which”, she cocked her head mockingly, watching as his expression shuttered and his jaw clenched. “As you well know from firsthand experience, I’m anything but frigid, _babe._”

His mouth in a grim line, he stared her down with frosty eyes. And then suddenly, he yanked her in close, until she had his lips by her ear and his cigarette burning near her thigh as he held on there as well.

“A piece of advice, _Harrington_”, he said roughly, in a low voice. “Plant your feet when you’re kicking off. You’re too eager to get away from the starting board, and it makes you lose momentum.”

And then he pushed Stevie back into the pool, tossing the cigarette in along with her, and walked away.

][][][][][][][][

**Saturday November 3rd, 1984**

Stevie needed to sit down and have a frank talk with Nancy.

It had taken her a night alone with her thoughts and a bottle of scotch to herself to come to terms with things, but this needed to be done.

Yes, she’d made it clear that she didn’t have romantic feelings for her even when sober, and that had really fucking hurt, but she’d never said that she didn’t want to be friends. At least, she only had when she was drunk.

It was pathetic, she knew. She might just be clinging for dear life to a friendship that wasn’t even there to begin with. But she needed to be more mature, and she knew that in this, just like with the movie theater last year, she’d never be able to just let the bad things she’d said and done lie. She needed to fix things.

So, box of fancy chocolates and a copy of Sixteen Candles in hand, she had pulled on a jean jacket to cut the wind, checked her hair and thrown on a pair of shades to hide the dark circles under her eyes. She looked a mess, she knew.

She’d spent the past two nights in her basement, swinging at thin air while thoughts of Barbara Holland’s face snuck in between the strikes. She couldn’t afford anything else on her conscience.

_More like you have no other friends, you selfish brat. Be honest, you’re just doing this because you want someone to sit with at lunch._

Shaking her head, Stevie tried to drown out the more noxious parts of her brain. She wanted to fix things with Nancy because she didn’t just see her as someone to make out with in the dark when no one could see, she didn’t only want to hold her hand and brush back her hair when it got on her forehead so she didn’t do that cute little huff of air to blow it out of the way—

No, she reminded herself. Nancy wasn’t only that. She was also her friend.

Someone she enjoyed spending time with, who made her laugh and smile and forget that monsters were real, who she cared about and wanted in her life.

Even Byers had become someone she’d miss, though she refused to admit it to him. They kept a sarcastic exchange that left them both smirking, lacking the animosity of their interactions before Nancy came into the picture.

Fuck, if she didn’t wish she could find his scrawny ass to unload this all and make him work through her problems with her the way he did with her calculus homework. But then she remembered that she’d never even explicitly _told _Jonathan about the less conventional aspect to her and Nancy’s relationship. It sometimes felt almost as if he knew when he looked at the pair of them, and he just quietly acknowledged it and moved on, though not before shooting Nance a longing look.

Stevie wasn’t blind. She knew that he had a thing for Nancy.

She’d just given him the same courtesy he’d given her and hadn’t said a word.

She was sure regretting that now.

After school swim practice the day before had seen Tommy bragging about how he’d seen Nance and Byers take off together again that morning on his drive to school. He had also informed her about how they’d both skipped that day. Tommy had taken delight in seeing her features fall at the news, and remembered to shove last year’s incident in her face. “At least this time, hopefully you’ll be smart and won’t let that bitch beat your face in again”, he’d shouted gleefully.

Thankfully, of those attending on a Friday before a long weekend, none of the gathering crowd had said anything. The only one who’d had any discernible reaction had been Hargrove, who’d been in a noticeably worse mood afterwards, snapping at Danny P. when he’d snarked about having to _more fucking laps._ He’d remained uncharacteristically silent for the remainder of the practice, only grunting in ascent when Grant had gushed about his new times.

She had always known deep down that they’d probably eventually see past their stupid, dorky fumblings and fall into bed together, but she hadn’t realized that it would be as a rebound from _her. _

She was more attached to Byers than she’d thought, because not only was she feeling the consequences of being dumped by Nancy for a guy she’d vehemently denied any feelings for, but she was feeling almost indignant on his behalf, as well.

Jon was a good guy, creepy pictures be damned. He deserved better than some half-hearted attempt to wash away their old _whatever it had been_. Not that Nance had ever even bothered to let her put a label on things…

Yeah, she was hurting. But Nance couldn’t help how she felt.

God, did she ever know that that was the truth.

She still wished that it hadn’t all happened the way it had though.

Muttering to herself about apologies, about strategies, she was lost in her thoughts and completely taken off-guard when some kid practically barrelled into her in the walk between her dad’s Beemer and the Wheelers’ front doorstep.

“Stevie!”

Off-handedly, she recognized him as one of the kids who hung around Nancy and Byers’ kid brothers. The one who made her feel like she belonged in first grade when he was in the room because he was just _that smart_. Dustin, she recalled faintly.

“Nancy isn’t home”, he said, grabbing the chocolates from her and marching back over to where she’d parked. “We have bigger problems than some girls’ night.”

Frowning, she turned back to follow him. He opened the passenger side and went to duck in, but paused and turned back.

“You still have that bat, the one with the nails?”

Her blood ran cold. There was only one reason that he would ask about that.

“Why?” Her voice was weak, and she felt her heart begin to pound as she made her way over. she couldn’t feel the ground beneath her feet as she walked, and her fingers were worrying at the sides of her jeans.

She couldn’t kill monsters today. She was hungover for the second time that week, had gotten less than eight hours of sleep in the past few days and still hadn’t had breakfast. But she heard the insistence in his tone and saw the youth in his face, barely thirteen. She relented.

She could maybe kill some monsters today.

“I’ll explain it on the way.”

][][][][][][][][][

After being faced with the threat of almost getting eaten alive by Henderson’s science fair project, Stevie was feeling more or less weary about the whole situation.

She must have known deep down that it’d be back at some point, that monster from another world running parallel to this one. Her mind must have been aware, as it struggled and pushed her to become someone who could live with hitting a home run using a faceless monster’s cranium. She’d been preparing, all this time spent suffering hadn’t been for nothing.

She felt oddly vindicated.

And yet, she was completely terrified, because now she knew what waited for her at the end of the tracks they were walking along, making quiet conversation to break up the tension

It had taken a moment for Henderson to convince her that this wasn’t just the overactive imagination of a child, but the words ‘_its face opened up and then it ate my cat_’ shut down any lack of belief she’d been clinging to.

She’d taken his words with a sort of white-knuckled, bared-teeth grace when he’d allowed the truth to tumble out on the drive over to the Henderson house. Dustin was a mess of ‘I-didn’t-mean-tos’, fantasy monster names and genius jargon for AP classes that Stevie had never even considered taking. She’d taken it in with as much poise as someone clutching at the steering wheel so she didn’t devolve into a crying, screaming mess of fear could.

And then she’d pulled over onto a shoulder to bury her face in her hands for a second, before sitting up straight, reaching over the kid to yank back to passenger side seat and pull out the bat. He’d squealed in protest as she’d done so, then exclaimed something along the lines of ‘_why in the name of Skywalker do you keep a deadly weapon in your car?_’’

“You want my help or not, kid?” He’d shut up afterwards.

That was, until they dove into the cellar and instead of finding the thing from Alien waiting to eat her alive, they found something much more disturbing

Their discovery of an underground tunnel system had shaken her deeply, as she’d realized that the things were rational enough to coordinate. Nausea had battered her stomach as she and the kid were forced to face the reality that these weren’t just horrifying, vicious nightmare beasts with a taste for human flesh; they were planning something.

They’d both looked at each other as the truth of it all dawned on them, and she could see her own horror reflected in his face.

After that, Stevie had sat herself down long enough to still the tremor in her hands, while Dustin screamed about how screwed they all were and how this shouldn’t be happening again because hey promised it was over. She grabbed him by the shoulders and set him straight, let him know that this shit wouldn’t get to him, or little Byers, or anyone else. Not while she was around.

And then after a brief conversation, she’d marched up to the kid’s front door with him hot on her heels and rung the doorbell with a sweet, sunny smile that she reserved for two occasions; for looking down on pricks after she’d kicked them in the balls, and other people’s parents.

“Hi Mrs. Henderson, I don’t know if you had any suspicions, but Dustin here planned a little surprise for you tonight!” she gushed after the woman invited her inside. “I babysit in my free time, and since I’m a friend of Mike Wheeler’s older sister, Nancy, Dustin thought I’d be a good choice as a sitter for while you give yourself the night off after all of your hard work lately!”

Pressing a fifty dollar bill her father had left in the glove compartment into the woman’s hand, she beamed at her protests, shaking her head and laughing.

“He’s such a good kid, your son is. He’s been mowing lawns in the neighborhood to save up for this, and when he told me about his plan, I just knew I had to pitch in whatever I could! So I told him that I could offer my sitter services pro bono to keep an eye on him while you relax!”

She was laying it on thick. The way she liked her chunky peanut butter in a PB&J— _thick_.

His mother, flustered and blushing as Henderson rushed her into a full-body hug, mumbled something about how she couldn’t accept this, and how it was so sweet that he’d remembered her birthday. But she seemed to be buying what they were selling.

When she realized that this birthday aspect hadn’t been mentioned in their improvised plan, she shot Dustin a look, to which he responded with a guilty expression and a shrug. And, after a few incognito calls on their family phone line charging to her parents’ credit cards, Mrs. Henderson was set up with a night away at a quaint little bed and breakfast located an hour south of Hawkins.

After they helped her load her bags into her sedan and waved as she drove off, Stevie turned to the kid and looked him in the eyes.

“I told you, no one is going to get hurt. Not while I’m around.”

He’d looked like the weight of the world had been lifted from him, and he’d asked about supper, and she’d winced. Stevie was not a good cook.

Instead, they grabbed a snack, and she distracted him by informing him that she had never seen any of the Star Wars movies, or even anything sci-fi, really. That had launched him into an hour-long rant about how the masses were sheep when it came to cinematic storytelling, and indulged him by pretending she thought that Darth Vader sounded like the best thing since sliced bread.

“_He’s meant to look like a Nazi. He’s like actually meant to be Hitler!”_ he’d screamed before she shushed him, suddenly alert when she heard the sound of creaking outside the window. It had just turned out to be a branch, but it was enough to spook her. They wouldn’t be taking any chances, she told herself, upset that she’d allowed her distraction to work on herself as well.

Shooing him off to his room, she pulled out the bat from where they’d hidden it by the powder room, settled onto the couch with it laying across her knees and waited.

][][][][][][][][][][

**Sunday November 4th, 1984**

Somehow, she always ended up with the shit jobs when it came to group projects.

And while Henderson called his friend on his radio, Stevie was unloading buckets of raw beef from her dad’s car’a trunk. Some of the stale blood had gotten on the upholstery, and she planned on ignoring it until he came back from whatever trip was keeping him away this time.

Tucking her bat into an old school bag and swinging it on, she grabbed the last bucket and elbowed the trunk shut. The town butcher had been ecstatic when she’d bought out his entire stock of off-cuts and ground beef. Her mother would be less pleased when she saw the bill she’d run up on her card. “C’mon, let’s go!”

Heading into the woods, he led her off the path, to a set of abandoned train tracks. Her shoes were muffled by the dead pine needles, and the forest was uncharacteristically quiet. There was no sound of birds, or the skittering or squirrels and chipmunks. It was silent.

As they scattered cubes of meat between their steps, they began to talk.

“So let me get this straight”, she said. “You kept something you probably knew was dangerous to impress some girl… who you _just met_?”

“That’s grossly oversimplifying things.” Geez, even when he was being defensive, he had a better vocabulary than she did.

“Why would a girl like some nasty slug anyways?” She wrinkled her nose in distaste, dropping more meat.

“An inter-dimensional slug? Because it’s _awesome?_” The kid sounded incredulous that anyone could ever find something so odd gross, as if it had never occurred to him that generally, people didn’t like slimy things from weird places.

Considering that, Stevie tried to approach things with kid gloves and let him down gently. But he needed to hear the truth, so…

“Even if she did like it—which I bet she didn’t… just… either way, it seems like you’re trying too hard, kid.”

Henderson scoffed.

“Well not everyone can be hot, or have your perfect hair.” The last words were said with an extra dash of disdain, but Stevie knew better than to snap back. He was insecure, and she knew that he was just trying to hide that fact.

“Look, it’s not about the hair, or even about being hot, really...” she tried, watching as he winced and shook his head. God, she was no good at this. So instead, she tried again.

“If I was a guy, I’d probably tell you something along the lines of ‘never let them know you care. Even if you do, that’s what girls like’”, she started slowly, uncertain of how to give this kind of relationship advice. She only knew what worked on her, what she’d seen Tommy and her peers try over the years. And they weren’t exactly prime examples.

“But if you want to _keep_ a girl, you can’t be an asshole. Nobody likes getting walked all over all of the time, so yeah, I guess you can’t give it all away at first. Nobody wants to hear ‘marry me’ on the first date either. But something’s gotta give if you want her to stick around.”

A painful feeling curled in her heart as she thought of Nancy, and then of herself.

“You’ve got to be good to her.”

There was a moment of silence, where she tried so hard not to think about what she meant.

“You sound like you know what you’re talking about”, Dustin replied thoughtfully. “Have you dated a lot? Are you dating a guy right now?”

If she ignored all of her sordid past and her less-than-family-friendly inclinations, she didn’t have much left to work with, and the kid seemed really desperate for advice of any kind. She was about to throw in the towel and tell him to ask Byers, since he _clearly _had a better handle on his love life than she did at the moment. But there had been one, niggling thought at the back of her mind, one that she hadn’t had a chance to properly process.

Her night with Billy Hargrove.

But then, how did one explain in PG terms to a prepubescent kid smarter than she was what _hate sex _was? Stevie was about to take her best crack at that disaster of a situation, because god only knew that she couldn’t bring this one to Nance or Byers.

God help her.

And god knew that somehow, Dustin Henderson was the smartest person around, and happened to be above all else, a good person. He wouldn’t indulge her more cynical thoughts like Byers would, or offer up solutions that were completely unrealistic, like Nancy was prone to doing. So it was worth a shot. At least, as far as she justified it.

“I may, um, be seeing someone. Kind of. Not really.”

“How are you ‘kind of not really’ seeing a guy?” Henderson responded, fingers crooning in air quotations between words. She knew that if they’d been facing each other, she’d see his eyes roll.

“Um”, she stumbled. “Like, we…kiss and… stuff? And that part is nice. Like, I mean, I have a really good time, but when we’re… not kissing… and stuff… it gets…”

“You know, I’m thirteen, not five”, the kid cut in, frustrated. “I know what sex is and I’m fully aware that you don’t ‘have to be in love to make a baby’.” And there were the air quotes again, only this time, they were far more pointed.

Groaning, Stevie paused, running a hand through her bangs.

“Look, I find the guy an absolute asshole, but oh my god, the sexual tension just…”

“What exactly is… sexual tension?”

“You’re telling me they gave you Sex Ed but didn’t teach you about attraction? You know, the exact _thing that makes you want to have sex in the first place?_”

Ignoring his protests about semantics, Stevie looked back at Dustin. “It’s like… before a storm. You can’t see it, but you can feel it. There’s this electricity.”

“Like electromagnetic fields in the clouds and the atmosphere—“

She cut him off. “Not that kind of electricity. A… sexual electricity.”

Dustin nodded as if he understood, and she had to refrain from sighing loudly. He’d get it one day soon.

“Anyways, when we’re doing physical stuff like… um, sex”, she said awkwardly, feeling a blush rise to her cheeks. How in the world was _she _the one getting embarrassed while talking about intercourse with a _child_? Shaking her head, she went on.

“It’s great. We’re super compatible, and he knows exactly what I’m looking for and can follow through, which can be hard to find in a guy my age. But then when we’re not… having sex… I wanna bash his brains in with my fender.”

“Is he really that much of a dick?” Henderson asked, after a moment of silence. She could feel the judgment in those quiet seconds, could feel the new kind of panic blooming in her throat. This time, instead of a fear of being hunted alive, it was a fear of the opinions of a kid who’d barely ever even spoken to a girl.

Stevie considered this. Yeah, he’d usurped her position at the top of the swim team and that sucked, but that wasn’t necessarily something that could be helped. He probably wanted the college sports scholarship as badly as she did. At the party, he’d been a bit obnoxious, but then, he’d also been drunk and stoned. He’d still gotten her off twice before even attempting to get her to do anything to him—an anomaly among teenage males— as she recalled. He’d tried to be nice the other day at swim practice, after her breakup-but-not-quite with Nance, he’d seen that she was having a rough time and had at least tried to let her know that he wasn’t actively adding to it.

But then she remembered how he’d implied that she exchanged sexual favours for bail money, and how he’d sounded every time words came out of his mouth. And also, that he’d told the guys on the swim team that her tits were ‘great, but I’ve seen better.’

_Lying douchebag. _

“He’s the biggest asshole to walk the halls of Hawkins High, and_ I _go to school there, so that’s saying something”, she blurted out, unthinking. Dustin was giving her an amused look.

“There was a bit of hesitation there, Harrington.”

“Yeah, well”, Stevie paused, scowling and running another nervous hand through her hair. “You haven’t met the guy yet. Wait until you do, and then I know you’ll agree with me.”

“I kind of want to meet him now”, Henderson admitted with a goofy grin. Stevie’s blood ran cold. Hargrove would have a field day with this dorky kid, and who the hell knew what kind of damage he’d inflict onto someone so defenseless.

“No, you don’t.” Her words were harsh and cutting, and broke through the camaraderie they’d been building slowly over the last day. She felt bad, snapping at him the way she had. But she knew that Hargrove was a wild card even to the people he seemed to want on his good side, let alone some random, helpless nerd like the little guy she’d been following for the last eighteen hours.

It only took her another moment of silence before she relented and held out an olive branch.

“Fabergé Organics”, she let out. “The Harrington hair secret. You use the shampoo and the conditioner and when your hair is damp—_no wet, when it’s damp_— you do four puffs of the Farrah Fawcett spray.”

After a pause, he tried to muffled his laughter. “Farrah Fawcett spray?”

“Yeah”, she returned pointedly. “Farrah Fawcett spray.”

“Isn’t it for girls?” Rolling her eyes, she shook her head.

“My dad uses it too, and he gets the same results. Now, this is a _family secret_ that I have passed on here, so you don’t tell anyone. If I hear you have, your ass is grass, Henderson”, Stevie said with a serious look on her face. She stared him down, until they both devolved into fits of laughter, then cursing as they remembered their gloves were covered in meat slime when they went to clutch at their sides.

Once they recovered, they continued walking as the kid explained the plan for meeting Lucas and this girl at the junkyard a mile down the road. They kept scattering beef cubes as they went, the sun finally hitting its stride for the day and lighting up the tops of the trees.

As they continued to wander down the tracks, she noticed Dustin had a huge grin on his face, and couldn’t help but allow her mouth to fall into one of her very own.

][][][][][][][][][

As they finally neared the open space of the junkyard, Stevie pulled her sunglasses off and assessed the landscape. Lots of escape routes if needed, but they could control the path that this thing took on its way over to them. That, and plenty of cover in the old scrap heaps lying around, stripped of tires but with working doors and windows.

“Oh yeah, this’ll do nicely.”

Wandering down the hill with the bucket of beef still in her hand, she tucked them into her collar. “This’ll do just fine. Good call, little dude!”

With Dustin following behind, they continued scattering until they reached a clearing by an abandoned bus, where they decided to dump out the last of their bait into one big pile. They barely sat back to take a moment of rest after their trek through the woods, when they heard someone approaching.

“I said _medium well_!”

The shout came from the Sinclair kid, who’d pulled up with some redhead on the back of his bike across the lot. They waved as they walked up, and Stevie caught the sour expression on Henderson’s face.

“Who’s that?” she asked, though she had a sinking suspicion that she already knew which girl this was. As she walked over besides Lucas, smug look on her face and her arms crossed, Dustin’s face grew even more dark. Stevie winced.

She really did feel for the kid. She knew what that felt like.

She refused to let herself think of Nancy.

When the pair came to meet them, Dustin hauled his buddy aside to argue in hushed yelling behind the wreck of an old Honda. Sighing, she turned to little red, who was giving her that whole ‘are you gonna tell me what we’ve gotta do already?’ look.

“Okay, so the plan is that we’re gonna barricade the bus and block off all the entry points except the front door”, she explained, hands on her hips. “Henderson and I laid a trail to lure the thing here, and we’re gonna corner it and end things the way they should have been long ago.”

Maybe she was a little irritated that she’d had another sleepless night because of this supernatural bullshit. Just a bit grumpy.

But the girl listened and started to gather metal siding while she left in the other direction to do the same. When she walked back up with a rusted folding chair, Dustin and Lucas were still whispering loudly as she and the redhead were doing the real work. She really did always get the shit tasks in group projects.

Taking her chair, she laid it down heavily against the car they were hidden behind with a loud clang.

“Hey, dickheads! How come the only one helping me out is that random girl?”

Turning to go, she shot one last encouragement over her shoulder as they seemed to shake hands and make up. “There’s like forty minutes of light left. Come on, let’s go!”

As they filed over behind her, complaining all the way, she couldn’t help but feel a little better about everything. No one would get hurt.

Not while she was around.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you haven't heard of Joe Keery's musical project, DJO, please do yourself a favor and go and listen to him right now. Roddy and Chateau are new favorites, I'm driving my boyfriend insane playing them at all hours. 
> 
> As always, thanks for reading, and looking forward to hearing how you all felt about this chapter!


	5. I’d Sit Alone and Watch Your Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stevie's lucky that the Babysitter's Club books didn't get published until 1986, or else she'd definitely have been saddled with watching the children far sooner and far more often than she already has been.

_Oh, fuck. _

She’d just splashed gasoline on her shoes.

Skidding the sneakers through the grass in a poor attempt to wipe it away, Stevie tried her best to keep the gas can steady. She backed away from the pile of meat to the bus, which they’d spent the better part of their remaining daylight fortifying.

She’d been impressed with the kids’ teamwork. Dustin had dictated which points to reinforce, while Lucas assessed how to best lay layers of metal siding and been the one to suggest the use of the barrels. Max had also revealed a viciously stubborn determination, having done most of the actual heavy lifting out of sheer refusal to let ‘the losers damage their delicate nerd hands’. But Stevie had also seen the anxious energy emanating from her, as she lifted and piled and pulled, trying to distract herself from what she dreaded. She recognized it.

They’d let her delegate. She’d been surprised about that one, considering how much smarter than her they seemed to be—or at least, more _aware_, more _in the know_— but they’d let her bark orders and point out things that needed doing without too much grumbling.

Wordlessly, they’d all climbed into the bus, single-file, as night fell and the sun went down. They shared granola bars and baby carrots that she’d packed ahead, supplemented by Sinclair’s box of raspberry pop-tarts and a few hisses of ‘_quiet!’ _when the crinkling off wrappers got too loud. 

Eventually, Lucas climbed through the roof hatch with a set of binoculars while they waited inside with bated breath. He was safe, Stevie reminded herself. They had built an entire barricade of tires filled with gravel to weigh them down. He was fine.

She fiddled with her lighter, lighting it and flicking it closed as she imagined what the smell of monster flesh would feel like in her nose.

“So you’ve really fought one of those things before?”

Max had blurted it out after they’d established that they were the only living things in the vicinity, and were likely to wait long into the night for it to show up. She’d still caught her off guard, as she’d seemed fairly surly in general during their time on the bus.

Stevie nodded, flicking the lighter shut. The grip she had with one hand around her bat tightened.

“And you’re totally sure it wasn’t a bear?”

And there it was. The mocking tone. Maybe it was only there to mask her fear about the reality of the situation, but Stevie knew it was a challenge.

“Don’t be an idiot”, Dustin snapped, finally giving in to his annoyance. “It wasn’t a bear. Why are you even here if you don’t believe us?”

They exchanged glares.

“Just go home”, he added, allowing his hurt to show through.

“Yeesh, someone’s cranky”, Max snarked as she got up and climbed to join Lucas on the roof. “Past your bedtime?”

If Stevie hadn’t felt so bad at seeing Henderson’s expression as she left to go see his friend, she might have been impressed. And a little reminded of herself on the days where she just felt the need to reach out with words like little hooks and _pull until it hurt. _

She stifled the feeling of discomfort that it brought up in her. She couldn’t keep projecting her problems onto other people. They were their own selves with their own experiences, and this girl had clearly never experienced the supernatural if she was acting so blasé.

“‘Just show her you don’t care’”, she muttered, looking down at her feet. There were mud stains on her sneakers now. “You know better, kid. Not if you want something real.”

“I _don’t”_, he replied in a short tone. “Don’t roll your eyes at me.”

She did it again, smirking.

“Stop.”

They stared and then devolved into snickers. As they continued to poke fun at the other, Stevie felt her mood start to lighten, and the tight elastic band in her chest begin to relax.

That was, until they reached the topic of graphic novels.

“Comic books are definitely superior to comic strips! Have you ever seen Calvin and Hobbes take on alien invaders, or defend the whole universe from evil?”

“Actually”, she argued back, “there was one Sunday strip where Calvin does exactly that while imagining a space travel adventure during recess—“

A loud screech interrupted her, echoing through the whole of the yard.

They both bolted for the windows, her fingers clutching her bag so hard she couldn’t feel them anymore, as she tried desperately to lay eyes on it before it laid eyes on them.

As Henderson related messages with Sinclair, she heard him scream out its location.

“_Ten o’clock! **Ten o’clock!**_”

_There. _

She spotted it, moving through the poorly timed arrival of a fog, seeping from the warm earth as the night chilled. She watched it hover, waiting, scurrying around the edges of the lot.

“Why isn’t he taking the bait?”

Dustin looked behind her, shaking his head. “I don’t know.”

Her brow furrowed, and she tried to consider what she knew about these things.

They grew to enormous sizes and hunted humans, could tear them apart and through dimensions with a thought. They were attracted to blood, and most of all, they were ravenous. They would eat whatever they could get.

But last year, the other one, the full-grown monster, it had only come calling for one thing; human blood.

“Maybe he’s tired of beef”, she mused aloud, as Dustin’s face fell into horror.

There would only be one way this could work. Only one way for the trap to be triggered and for this to be over and for everyone to be safe. But her hands were shaking because she knew what this felt like. She’d been here before, and it had ended in blood, and fire.

It was about to end the exact same way. It had to.

Because there was no way she was sending any of the kids out there. No way.

She turned to gather what she needed, as Dustin scrambled behind her.

“Stevie? Stevie? What are you doing?”

He was growing frantic as she dug her nails into her thigh over and over, scratching at the thick denim because it didn’t feel quite right, grabbing her bat and her bag too, just in case. She turned around as she reached the doors of the bus, and tossed Henderson her lighter.

“Just get ready.”

And with that, she yanked open the rusted metal and stepped out, her feet making the ramp squeak but quiet once she reached the packed dirt. Breathing through her nose, she remembered what Byers had taught her, how his little brother had passed on tricks from the Lab therapist to calm down after the bad dreams, or the nights where it all felt too real. _In one nostril, out the other…_

It was a technique that was impossible to ever truly achieve, and that meant that it worked for Stevie, because that meant there was no way for her to ever really fail. She kept doing it as she stepped lightly, like she’d learned last Halloween, the bat swivelling; ready.

She followed the sounds by turning her ears, by ignoring how she’d ripped up the skin around her nails in her earlier search for comfort and how her fingers now gleamed wetly with blood. Extra incentive, she remarked to herself, for the demon-dog or whatever it was Henderson had called it, to come out.

She wasn’t terrified at all. She wasn’t tempted to run, she wasn’t ready to scream out in fear and cry for her life.

She also wasn’t lying to herself.

_In one nostril, out the other…_

They needed it at the pile of meat, which meant she needed to get herself _and _it there. So she began to whistle, calling for it like a dog. She found herself hovering by the pile, and trying so hard not to bolt away to cover. Instead, she taunted the lizard like it was the lead for a rival school at a swim meet, trying to push it to find her and not the kids.

She watched as the mist parted, revealing a growling, dog-shaped animal. It didn’t quite have the grotesque limbs of the demogorgon, and instead looked more like a pit bull cross-bred with a tadpole. That was, if the product didn’t have a face.

As she watched it stalk forward, she remembered that this was oh so very happening right now, and this wasn’t a dream. She was ready for this, she knew how to do this.

_And you did it so well last time. Don’t deny it. _

She grit her teeth, bolstered by the thought. It was the size of a Doberman, and her bat had nails sticking out of it. Nails with blood on them.

She could do this.

_“Stevie!”_

“Kinda busy right now!” she yelled back at Sinclair, who was shouting at her from the bus. She was swinging the bat in slow loops in one hand, winding and warming up her shoulder for the coming fight.

“_Three o’clock! Three o’clock!_”

Well, fuck, she thought as she turned slowly and saw another, and another, and another.

“ABORT! ABORT!”

Henderson had wrenched open the bus doors in an attempt to get her back in, but it was too late. The one she’d first seen lunged, face-petals open and toothsome, as she sprinted a few short steps to a car nearby and slid across the hood. She flipped over when she landed to face her other side just in time to nail another one of those bastards aiming for her throat.

_Too close. _

As another three charged at her, she ran back to the bus, landing in a heap on top of the kids as Dustin hurriedly slammed the doors shut. She panted from the exertion, and wanted so badly to collapse, but knew that this wasn’t over. They watched in horror as the beasts started to ram themselves against the bus walls, and they scrambled to hold up their reinforcements.

“There’s no way they can get in!”

Dustin should’ve knocked on wood, because not five seconds later, she was stuck trying to bash the brains out of something she wasn’t even really sure had a head as it squirmed its way past the doors. As she tried desperately to keep the doors shut, the monster clawed through the broken glass and twisted metal, slicing them into the skin of her hands. The sting caused her to spring away from the entrance, allowing it to push through, as she gathered her bat and took action. She aimed for the head, and swung and swung for almost a minute, finally prizing her bat free just in time to hear Max shriek in terror at the top of the ladder leading to the roof of the bus.

Wrenching the redhead down and pushing her and the other behind herself, Stevie got between a baby demogorgon and what it considered its Sunday supper. She waved the bat at it, stained with the blood and gore of its packmate, screaming obscenities as it roared barely three feet from her face.

“YOU WANT SOME, ASSHOLE? THEN _COME GET SOME!”_

It roared again, its foul breath scattering over her face and making her squint but not flinch back. She couldn’t give it any ground. She’d never get it back if she did.

It felt like a standoff, like the spaghetti westerns she watched at Christmas with her cousins until her mother came screeching into the room about predatory men and not teaching children the wrong lessons. After the ensuing argument with their Uncle Dan, Stevie didn’t see Troy or Jimmy anymore. Not even at Christmas.

But as demogorgon junior hesitated, she saw how they’d have been overtaken, and eventually fallen to their sheer numbers. Sinclair might like to think he was accurate with that sling-shot of his, but it wouldn’t do any damage to the things that walked off hits from Stevie’s bat, and Max didn’t even have a weapon either. She’d found Henderson a hammer in the yard, but they were relying on her for firepower at this point. God help them.

The monster turned and left so suddenly that she felt hollow, and almost unsatisfied. She’d been promised a _fight, goddamnit_, not a few frantic swings in a school bus doorway and a lucky hit out in the open. She had this frantic energy that told her she needed to go and find them, and pluck them from Hawkins one by one if she had to, swinging all the way. It was the only way she’d ever be able to rest, to be safe. It needed to be done.

She was confusing herself. She’d been letting the fear creep on her slowly all year, climaxing in the past month where she paced around aimlessly for hours on end rather than cower beneath her bed’s comforter. She’d been dreading this, and now she wanted _more? _

Stevie was beginning to wonder if she’d hit her head when she’d pulled out her Dukes of Hazzard moves to compliment her Halloween costume choice a few days back.

Letting out the breath she’d been holding, Stevie caught a glimpse of Lucas and Max clutching hands as she worked her way back to the front of the bus. Dustin was going to have a rough time of it, she knew. She inched her way through the door once more, bat first and the kids hot on her tail.

The grunting sounds and motion led away into the dark of the woods, and as she squirted, she could almost make out the individual forms. There were almost two dozen on them.

She swallowed her fear as Lucas asked what in the world was going on, and Max echoed his thoughts. She couldn’t let them see.

“Did Stevie scare them away?” inquired Dustin, hand on the rail to brace himself.

“No. No way”, she objected, turning to face them with her bat leaning against one shoulder. “They’re going somewhere.”

][][][][][][][][][][

Following the tracks had actually led them where they wanted to go.

Maybe the universe was finally giving her a break. Or at least, she thought that until she realized who they’d stumbled onto.

As they broke through the brush, Stevie shone her flashlight up at a pair of confused and squinting faces that called out in unison. “_Stevie?”_

“Nancy?” She squinted through the beam of their flashlights, until she saw who Nancy was with.

“Oh.”

There they were, together.

Nancy and Jonathan.

Stevie may have wanted to throw up just a little bit before she remembered that she was done with being childish, and that she was going to move on and keep these people in her life instead of just running from them like she always did. She was growing better, and growing up. The time for childish things was over.

Of course, she relented, she’d promised Henderson that she’d come over for a marathon of the Star Wars trilogy after her interviews next weekend. Maybe it was just time to grow the fuck up in the ways that mattered, then.

But it still hurt to see Nance standing there, orbiting Byers with her body language, leaning towards him ever so slightly as they moved to face her. She knew what they’d done, and it still fucking hurt. Not only in the way that she’d expected it to, either. Now, it was like she wasn’t even part of the little trio they’d formed in the past year, bonded through trauma and shitty sitcoms on Saturday nights. She was outside, out in the cold.

And Stevie was fucking freezing.

No, actually, she should have worn more layers. Now that she wasn’t tromping through the woods or fending off the beasts from another dimension, her sweat had cooled and plastered her t-shirt to her back, and left her denim jacket feeling damp and uncomfortable.

“What are you doing here?” she blurted, as if she wasn’t completely conspicuous with a bloody nail bat poking out from her backpack. Stevie knew that she stuck out like a sore thumb; playing chaperone to a late-night forest trek with a bunch of thirteen-year-olds. That, and she was pretty sure she had twigs in her ponytail.

“What are _you_ doing here?” Nancy countered, walking forward with Jonathan to meet her and the kids. They all merged together into a single mass of bodies, as their breath hung in the air as a fog.

“We’re hunting Dustin’s pet lizard. Turns out the one he found in his trash gets a lot bigger and has a taste for human flesh”, Lucas said pointedly, shooting Henderson a look of admonishment.

Though she felt for kid, Stevie was mostly glad that she didn’t have to talk to Nance before she could gather herself. She didn’t want to put her foot in her mouth and say something hurtful when _she _was the one hurting.

Stevie remembered the bruises from the last time she’d done something so stupid and selfish, and her jaw still clicked after the ensuing fight. It had taken almost a month for the last of the bruising to fade, and the cut on her cheekbone only closed up fully around Thanksgiving.

It had been a trip, explaining the aftermath away to concerned teachers. In the end, Hopper had fabricated a hit-and-run incident to tie up the loose ends. Even so, the faculty at Hawkins High remained wary, and had kept a close eye on her ever since.

Clutching her nails into the material of her jeans with reckless abandon, she was sharply reminded of how she’d fucked up for the nth time last Halloween. Only this time, she’d bled for it.

][][][][][][][][][][

**Sunday October 30th, 1983**

As Nancy Wheeler approached their car with a furious stride, Stevie let her head fall back and burst out in raucous laughter. She tried to use it to shield herself from the coming confrontation. After all, she’d convinced Carol, Tommy and Gina D. to help her spray-paint a particularly shocking headline across the ‘New in Theaters’ sub-heading.

‘_Nancy Wheeler fucks freaks’. _

As Tommy painted a dick onto the back door of the theater, she watched on, hands stuffed in the pockets of her jacket and smirking.

She felt vindicated after finding the two together, crawling all over each other like the cockroaches she’d found in the locker rooms the other week. _Disgusting_.

It made her sick to her stomach that Nancy Wheeler, so beautiful and smart and better than this could give herself over to Byers, the creepy kid she was half-sure killed his own brother. It was wrong, and shouldn’t be happening.

Especially not after the pictures. Especially not after Stevie showed Miss Perfect Prim and Proper the wonders of the female orgasm. A few times, even.

“Hey there, Princess”, Carol cooed, eyes sharp and dangerous. Stevie knew that she wasn’t only being catty out of loyalty, but also because she had been genuine in attempting to befriend her.

Carol had wanted Nancy to like her, to want to hang out together. When Stevie had called her at midnight to cry about how freaked out she was to find Jonathan Byers in Nancy Wheeler’s room after the showdown in the parking lot, she’d been ready to smash the creep’s car—a broken camera would look merciful in comparison, she’d promised. But when Stevie had whispered in a revolted tone how Nancy had leaned into his touch instead of screaming bloody murder like she should have, she’d lost all sympathy for the girl.

She’d said as much, and she wasn’t working hard to prove herself wrong, either.

“Uh oh”, Tommy grunted, capping the spray paint. The red was beginning to drop down, and as the tip was pointed down, it gave the penis the sad impression of experiencing something only women did. It made her want to laugh, and open her mouth to give him shit for it.

Instead, a cracking slap whipped across her face, setting her off-balance for a second. When she looked up, Nancy glowered at her in self-righteous anger.

“What is _wrong _with you?”

She was clenching her fists so hard that her entire tiny frame was shaking. Her mouth was a thin line, set and trembling along with her, and she looked seconds away from lunging at her.

“What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with _you_?” Stevie shot back, wincing as she rubbed at her jaw. “I was worried about you. Could you actually believe that I was _worried about you_?”

“What are you talking about?” Nancy hissed, her eyes darting back and forth between her and the rest of the people gathered around them.

“I wouldn’t lie if I were you”, Gina decided to cut in. “You don’t want to be known as the _lying_ freak fucker, now would you?”

“Speak of the devil”, Tommy chuckled, hopping down from the steps as Byers rounded the corner and walked up. “Hi.”

“He came by last night”, Nancy defended. Her eyes were wide and pleading, and Stevie did her best to look past them to see the pathetic liar who’d once told her timidly about how she’d never even kissed anyone before, let alone had _sex_. For a girl who’d never gone past first base, Nancy Wheeler moved fast, and cruelly.

Stevie was done being hurt by some girl who’d tricked her into actually having _feelings_ for her. She was angry, now.

And Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

“Is she gonna cry?” Carol mocked in a baby voice, strutting up to meet her boyfriend and tucking herself against his side. “It’s not like Stevie here found the two of them having a sleepover in her bedroom. Tell them about how cozy they looked up there, shacked up like the bunch of freaks that they are.”

“Look”, Nancy said, her voice choking up. “I don’t know what you saw, but it wasn’t like that.”

“What, so you just… studied?” Stevie didn’t have the patience to hear her excuses. She knew what she’d seen, and she’d watched from the window as Byers had laid a blanket, and then anar over Nancy’s shoulders. They’d been curled into each other, in the same way she and Nance had been not five days ago. It had made her want to be sick.

“Or another pervy photo session” Tommy leered, one arm slung around Carol’s shoulders. She scowled and smacked him lightly, shooting him a glare.

“Shut the fuck up”, Stevie snapped at him, eyes still trained on Nancy and Byers.

“We were just—“ Nancy stuttered as she cut her off. She stepped forwards, getting right up in her face.

“‘We were just’ what? Finish that sentence” Stevie hissed, her voice dripping in disdain. Nancy took a miniscule step back, but she refused to relent.

“Finish. The sentence.”

She looked lost, as if she didn’t quite know what to do. But Stevie didn’t care. She knew what she’d seen.

“Go to hell, Nancy. God knows you’ll have the freak there with you when you finally make it.”

“Come on, Nancy, let’s just leave” Byers said desperately, watching Tommy closely as he inched further away to the mouth of the street. He looked ready to bolt.

“You know Byers, I’m almost impressed”, Stevie said lazily, hands on her pockets. Her sneer said everything she needed it to, as she looked the creep over and mimed gagging.

“I always took you for a queer, but I guess you’re just a screw-up like your father.”

Nancy’s mouth fell open in disbelief. She shook her head at her once, her jaw clenched. Stevie pretended not to see, and instead focused on making a joke out of Byers.

She pushed the back of his head, moving him forward. “I’m not surprised— I mean, your house is full of screw-ups.”

“Don’t do this”, Nancy said with venom. “Don’t be a bitch just because you think you’re entitled to something you’re clearly not.”

Stevie felt her stomach drop to her ankles, but she refused to let anyone see how much that statement had struck true and painful. She would not back down. Not for someone who had fucked _Jonathan Byers. _

Scoffing, she rolled her eyes and planted her hands on her hips. “Wheeler, I’m only entitled to give you shit for fucking this creep who _took pictures of us changing through my room’s window_. I can’t believe I ever thought we could ever be friends. I should’ve just done like Holland and fucked off out of your life, because you clearly don’t care about any of us.”

_That_ would certainly shut Nancy up, she thought viciously.

But even so, as she spoke, she felt terrible about the shot at Barbara’s disappearance. That was a low blow, and she knew it.

“Hey, leave her alone”, spat Byers, still facing Nancy but slowly turning to face her once more.

_No you don’t_, she told herself as she shoved him back and slammed the palm of her hand against his skull.

“Can’t even do this right, Byers”, Stevie taunted. “Can’t even let your freak girlfriend fight your battles for you properly.”

“You’re just like the rest of your family. You’re just as pathetic as the rest of them”, she added as if it were an afterthought. The smile on her face was cutting, and she was ready to fight him if she had to.

“I mean, after your mom? I’m not even surprised about what happened to your brother. I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you, but the Byers’?” She smacked the back of his head once more. “They’re a disgrace to this entire tow—“

It was almost a surprise when Nancy punched her, clipping her cheekbone and sending her reeling against the side of a dumpster. The air was knocked out of her, and Stevie could feel the ache in her ribs already. This was a proper hit, a closed fist making pain bloom sharp where it hit.

Stevie Harrington would not take this lying down.

So she rolled up her sleeves like a big girl and flung herself back at Nancy, taking her down to the grimy asphalt of the alley. They wrestled around furiously, pulling at hair and laying blows as they tumbled all over. It was nails scrabbling against her collar, and the sting of her knuckles when she finally got Nancy on the chin. It was nothing but one moment and bad choice after another, until Wheeler twisted away from her grip.

In the background, Tommy shouted about how hot it was, and that Stevie should kick her ass.

Instead, they stumbled to their feet, and Nancy hit her in the face for the third time that night. Carol tried to move between them, maybe to give Stevie some sort of advantage, but she pushed her away. She would win this on her own.

She had to.

But then Nancy punched her again, and again, finally knocking her to the cold, damp ground. She climbed onto Stevie and began to slap her in the face over, and over and over.

It felt like a wave of fire, coming down to smite her from above for the wrong things that she’d done. Yeah, maybe Stevie had pushed this too far.

Maybe she should’ve dealt with this in private instead of airing her dirty laundry for all of Hawkins to see. But that didn’t matter now, because it was all said and done.

She’d made her bed, and this was her, lying in it.

She heard Byers shouting for her to stop, and felt hands reach between them to try and pry them apart. Nancy kept hitting her all the same.

The sound of sirens was unbearable close, she realized, as she managed to crack open an eye to see her friends run off and Byers accidentally hit the cop trying to pull them all away from each other in the nose. She watched as Nancy fell back away from her, an expression of pure horror dawning on her face.

Sitting on her ass in an alley, she stared at Stevie, and at the damage that she’d done. She burst into tears, as another officer came around to cuff her and pull her into the back of the cruiser.

][][][][][][][][][][

**Sunday November 4th, 1984**

After they’d established that Mike, Will and Byers’ mom were in fact inside the building where all of demogorgons had gathered, growls and groans echoed through the chill of the otherwise quiet dark.

It set the hair on the back of her neck upright, and she could feel the tendrils or anxiety growing as she paced aimlessly in circles around the children. Something was clearly going down inside of the Lab, and she wasn’t there to help Nancy and Jonathan find their siblings. They’d established quickly that she would be the one to keep an eye on her rag-tag little group, leaving no time for objections on her part.

But if she had to hear anything else about how last week’s episode of Terrahawks would never measure up to the one they’d done a few months prior with a similar plot, different planet, she was going to _lose her freaking mind_.

Even so, she’d been left behind because _apparently, _having once watched her cousin Troy doing his best to light a rubber duck on fire while in the tub at bath time made her the most qualified to keep an eye on the kids. Not that she’d even been able to get a protest in once Nancy and Byers made up their mind—it had been like screaming into the void and hoping for an answer.

As they kicked around, waiting for signs of life from inside, Byers’ shitty car screeched past the gate, the police cruiser Hopper rode around in fishtailing behind it. It pulled to a screeching halt in front of them, and the Chief stuck his head out, dressed in scrubs and looking like he’d had a long goddamn day, hollering to “_GET IN!_”

In that second, she knew that this was the second time that night that she was going to be the only thing between Sinclair, Henderson and Max and those terrifying things from

“Go! Go! Go! Go!” she shouted, shoving Sinclair, then Max, then Dustin into the Jeep, finally clambering in last as she saw the lights of the building flickering violently.

As she slammed the door behind herself and settled into the front passenger seat she’d climbed to as Hop peeled out, she let her head fall against the frame of the open window.

][][][][][][][][][][

Upon hearing that little Will Byers was in fact playing host to a whole new league of evil being from a parallel dimension, Stevie decided that she felt a bit faint. Her head was spinning with monster names from the text that Dustin had hauled out of his backpack. Apparently, the dork brought it everywhere with him.

But when they named the thing that had taken over the life of a child for a year after it abducted him in the first place, her back was so straight that Carol would’ve joked that someone had shoved a pool cue up her ass, and her fingers had clenched at her sides, stinging. 

So to distract herself from their impending doom and the ongoing presence of what the kids had dubbed ‘the Mind Flayer’, she helped Byers with some home renovation— god knew they needed it. Yet somehow, she was the one stuck doing the actual work.

To be entirely fair, it was less ‘renovation’ and more ‘turn this place into something vaguely resembling the living room of a conspiracy nut and drug lord’s shared apartment.’

She was hammering nails through planks of plywood, cursing when she knocked the hammer into the top of her thumb. The nicks on her fingers from holding back the doors of the bus had reopened and were bleeding a half-dozen slow, sluggish drops every minute or so, enough that she had to stop to wipe her hands intermittently, huffing in annoyance the whole time. Henderson had helped her clumsily wrap them on the car ride back to the Byers’ house, but the fabric had slid even more against the wooden handle of the hammer.

She’d never even touched a tool belt before, she was completely set off-guard when she’d been handed a hammer and a box of nails and told to make herself busy. She’d stared at it for a moment before realizing that no one would give her any further instruction past that. They wouldn’t hold her hand, not here.

Byers was taping garbage bags to windows, and was of course having a much easier time doing so. It was almost unfair.

And then she remembered that this was the second year in a row that his brother had been kidnapped in some form by an evil entity with hundreds of foot soldiers and potentially infinite reach. And that she’d blamed him for it the first time, then broken his camera and got him arrested.

Yeah. Maybe she deserved this.

Then she remembered how she’d saved his ass last year, and how he’d run off with her ex-whatever-the-fuck Nancy was, and how they’d definitely gotten hot and heavy while investigating the secrets of the Department of Energy. Not to mention those candid shots he’d taken last fall.

And then, she felt a little bit better.

But she still felt shitty.

In between whacking nails into place precariously, she paused to speak to Jonathan.

“Look, about you and Nancy”, she said in a quiet voice, watching for his expression. “I’m not dumb. At least, not _that_ dumb.”

She took a deep breath.

“I know that you two are… together.”

Jonathan whipped his head around to face her, eyes wide and hackles raised. He was expecting a fight.

He showed in that moment that not only was he wholly dedicated to Nancy, but that he was fully aware of their prior relationship. In that moment, Stevie felt her heart break a little for two reasons; Nancy Wheeler had told Jonathan Byers _everything_, and that he was willing to sacrifice what little friendship they’d kindled for _her. _

It felt like a pit had opened up in her stomach and she was slowly being pulled in, like a black hole tearing away parts of her until she was in free-fall.

She had no more secrets from the world, nor did she have a single friend who would do _absolutely anything_ for her. Even fight the horrible dregs of an evil consciousness from a parallel dimension.

It was a hard truth for her to swallow.

Maybe she could’ve been kinder, or even better. But it didn’t make this new reality any less hard to swallow. Stevie was, as she had always been, alone.

But that was okay, she reminded herself through the mass in her throat that was beginning to make it hard to swallow. Her fingers grasped at her thigh, burning at the tips she worked them against her leg and the denim covering it. She clawed herself away from that dark spiral of thoughts that she knew this could bring on. She couldn’t let herself be made weak like that again.

He was still her friend. Maybe he wouldn’t choose her over Nancy, but she didn’t have to make him make that decision. She didn’t have to put herself against them.

Because she’d always known it would end this way.

She just hadn’t realized it would be like this.

“It’s okay, Jonathan”, she explained, her eyes meeting his. It was not, in fact, okay, but he looked so tense that she was ready to lie to spare his feelings. She could see the new lines that sat heavy in the topography of his face. Jonathan Byers looked older than his years, and wore that age hard. She didn’t need to add to that.

“Clearly, she told you what happened between the two of us. I just want you to know that I’ll support your relationship no matter how… things ended between Nance and I”, she said slowly, weighing her words. “I still want both of you in my life. I.. I’d like to think that we’ve become friends.”

Her voice was weak and shaking, and she had left herself at the mercy of someone who should have offered her none.

She felt so frail in that moment that a strong breeze could blow her away. It was all that she could do not to crawl onto the Byers’ lumpy couch and draw a wool afghan tight around her shoulders until she no longer trembled like a leaf in the wind. She needed not to feel so breakable.

She was utterly vulnerable, her secrets betrayed by the only other person who’d shared in them. That could be a good thing, though, she considered. At least Nance had felt safe enough to tell him that they’d had some sort of relationship, even half-baked as it was.

Jonathan’s face had relaxed as she continued to speak, his shoulders pulling away from where he’d begun to brace them for impact. As if he’d been expecting a literal fight from her.

Stevie breathed in, and then breathed out.

“You’re not the only one, you know.”

His voice was soft, and he wouldn’t meet her eyes. He looked on as if he could see past the walls of the shed, and into the house.

“What do you mean?” She was feeling defensive despite his gentle tone, and she was still struggling to let her guard down. This was something that could _ruin her life _if it got out. Scratch that— it was something that _would _ruin her life if it got out.

In a moment, Stevie imagined what it would be to have had her time with Nancy out in the light of day instead of hiding it away with the dirty laundry she hadn’t done in two weeks; inside her closet.

She thought of walking down Main Street holding her hand, of laughing and pulling her close when they got burgers at the town diner, or having supper with the Wheelers and promising them that she’d treat their daughter right.

And then, she thought of how they’d be spat on and screamed at by the locals, or how Karen Wheeler would shriek about how _not here, not under my roof you don’t_.

She tried to swallow past the lump in her throat.

“I know someone… like you”, Jonathan spoke slowly, setting down the duct tape. He looked up once more, and there was none of the hate or fear Stevie had been expecting waiting for her. He looked like she felt.

“Someone… queer.”

She felt like she was choking. All of the air in the world had left her alone, her lungs grasping at nothing to fill them as she tried harder and harder to just _breathe_. No one had ever put it into words—not aloud.

It felt like someone had left her out in the void of space. Everything was fading away and a rushing sound was drowning what was left away, until there was nothing but panic.

That was, until she felt the warmth of a hand on her shoulder, burning through the denim to reach in and drag her from that precipice. 

“—it’s okay, Stevie! It’s okay!”

Jonathan Byers was pulling her into a hug, and promising that everything was going to be okay.

She wanted to laugh so hard she couldn’t stand at the sheer ridiculousness of the situation. Jonathan Byers, who was currently fighting evil for the second Halloween in a row to save his brother from unspeakable monsters, was comforting _her. _

“Look… I-I don’t think anything less of you for being how you are, and I won’t be telling anyone! I swear-I swear on my mother’s life! I won’t say a word!”

Stevie wasn’t sure when she started breathing right again, but in the second that Jonathan said the words ‘_on my mother’s life_’, all the rigid tension fled her body. She collapsed into his arms, allowing him to rub her back and stroke her hair as she tried to ignore that she’d been crying.

If there was one thing that she could count on, even if the world was coming to an end, it was that the Byers family would do _anything_ to keep each other safe.

And so, her secret was too.

She let him keep on holding her close through the shuddering sobs, waiting for the storm to pass.

When she finally stopped what felt like an eternity later, he let her go, and Stevie summoned the strength to wipe the salt from her cheeks and register all the words he’d spoken.

“It’s Will, isn’t it?”

It had been almost whispered, and when Jon gave a hesitant nod, she exhaled.

“You’re a good brother, you know that, right?”

He let out a startled laugh, and tried to busy his hands so that she couldn’t see how nervous they’d become. “Yeah, I guess.”

They lapsed into silence and gathered their tools but remained standing still for a moment.

“I’m sorry about how things ended… with Nance, and with the timing…” Stevie trailed off.

She felt awkward, and stupid. But she needed to say it instead of just letting the wound fester. If she ignored it all, it would sink into her bones until she had nothing left but that rotted potential of something that could have blossomed if she’d just _let _it.

“And if I’m being honest, after this last year… You shouldn’t have to _tell me _that you wouldn’t tell anyone”, she continued cautiously.

“At least, now that you _know_, you wouldn’t”, she amended, after a moment. “Not like last year.”

Byers looked like she’d punched him in the gut.

“If I’d known—I’d have never—“, he said in a rush, grasping at words. He looked so upset with himself, and it was making Stevie want to cry all over again. She wasn’t trying to rub his mistakes in his face, she was trying to correct her own.

“I know that you’ll treat Nancy right. I know that you’ll never be ashamed of her, and you’ll never ask her to hide because you’re scared of what people might think. I know that she’ll be happy… and that you will be too.”

It wasn’t easy to say. It was fucking hard for her to admit that, but she knew he needed to hear it right then.

Better yet, he _deserved _to hear it. Because it was the truth.

“You can’t help how you feel”, she reminded him softly. “Trust me, I know.”

“But I could’ve waited, or at least talked to you first, explained things”, he rushed out, his fingers twisting in his sleeves. Stevie shook her head, and sighed.

“Look, Jon, I’ve made some not-so-great decisions myself in the past few days. I mean, yeah, your timing is garbage, but you’re not the only one doing stupid shit because you don’t know how to deal with your feelings.”

He made to open his mouth, before she cut him off. “Like, look. I could’ve even worded that better. I keep hurting everyone because I keep forgetting that I’m not the only one who can feel upset.”

“You might have a point”, he responded after a moment, a watery smirk racing across his features before the heavy worry that had become almost habitual took its place. “But I still take the cake on that.”

She couldn’t bear to see him hate himself on her account. Not for one more second.

“Shut the fuck up, Byers! On Halloween, I hopped into bed with _Billy Hargrove_ and got arrested!”

His self-pity was washed away by shock and disbelief. After a second, he let out a short, barking laugh.

“You know what? You get to take the cake on this one, Harrington”, he choked out, trying to hold back chuckles. “_Billy Hargrove? Really?_”

“Hey, have you _seen _him with his shirt off?” She defended, feeling her cheeks heat. “Also, I’m about to ruin your life a bit by letting you know that he also gives amazing head.”

Sputtering, Jonathan turned away and grabbed at the garbage bags again as if it would scrub his brain clean of the information she’d just gifted him with. His ears were red, and she could see the blush begin to creep up onto his face.

She laughed, and for a moment forgot about the hell they’d been living for the past week to just revel in the fact that hearing about how well Billy Hargrove ate pussy was enough to turn Jonathan Byers into an inarticulate mess. It was comedy gold, and she knew that she’d be holding onto this long after the night was over.

But then she remembered what they were doing and why they were here, and sobered herself.

They might’ve needed a moment of relief from the fear and panic and sheer adrenaline, but that moment was gone. So instead, she told him what she knew they all needed said, even if only to hear the words spoken out loud.

“Look… just… Just know that if you need me, or anyone else, that we’re all here for you”, Stevie reminded him, a small smile forming at the corner of her mouth. “Whatever you need, all you have to do is ask.”

With her jaw set and her eyes hard, she levelled her stare back to meet his own.

“We’ll end this, together.”

][][][][][][][][][][

Despite all her best efforts, being alone in the Byers house with both but Nancy Wheeler and a group of nerdy pre-teens for company was painfully awkward for Stevie.

They paced about or sat around, all trying to ignore the nervous energy brought on by their friend’s interrogation. As Stevie’s gaze fixated on Nancy’s worrying hands, she wondered how Jonathan was dealing with having to put the screws to his little brother. He and Mrs. Byers were _really _not having an easy go of things.

Her own fingers busied themselves in picking at the torn and ragged edges of her cuticles, trying to ignore what was likely a bunch of blood seeping from the seams between where her nails and the delicate flesh met. If she squinted, it was almost like it was just blood from her hands that had run too far down.

Tearing her attention away, she looked up once more to lock eyes with Nancy, who looked worried and as if she was about to open her mouth and say something that would make her want to collapse against her as if the past week hadn’t happened and just _cry. _

Then the phone rang, and Stevie’s blood ran cold.

Dustin rushed to hang it up, slamming it down on the receiver with an edge of viciousness she’d not yet seen in him. They all stayed still, breathing shallow breaths in the hope that the thing flaying Will Byers’ mind hadn’t heard.

Until the phone rang again, and Nance, in all of her wisdom and glory, smashed that sucker to broken parts and plastic. She stayed there a moment, breathing heavily, before the world began to move again. 

The back door slammed open as Hopper brushed past all of them, holding a _hunting rifle _of all things. Nodding to Jonathan, who was hot on his heels and laying Will down on the sofa, with a quick jerk of his head, he asked; “You know how to use this thing?”

“_I _do.”

Nancy Wheeler stepped forward, her chin tilted up and her spine steeled. She caught the weapon as the Chief tossed it towards her, cocking it and holding it up to her shoulder to take aim.

She’d clearly been going back to the gun range, despite her past assurances otherwise.

_Guess I’m not the only one who’s bullshit, huh?_

Shaking her head, Stevie reminded herself that this was not the time nor place for the petty shit she usually got away with. She had to focus. She had people depending on her.

The rest scrambled to find a way to defend themselves, while she did her best to gather herself and pick up her bat without seeing black spots. The fear was a rising tide within her, and unfortunately, her nausea was starting to rival its rising tide.

They all huddled into a circle around Will, all grim and scared but ready and waiting.

Stevie was so on edge she could taste blood on her tongue and feel the roaring of her heart in her ears. She danced back and forth with the bat, waiting, hoping it didn’t come from an angle that she couldn’t reach. Her shoulders flexed. She knew she could swing.

The cuts on her knuckles didn’t feel quite so sharp against the focus of adrenaline. As they heard those shrieking roars, they turned to face them as one, all clutching at their weapons. As the sounds grew closer, they became sparser, and Stevie choked up on her grip, adjusting.

Suddenly, a mass of limp flesh flew through the Byers’ den window, collapsing on a pile of debris as it came crashing in. It looked like one of the demo-dogs, she realized, only much more dead.

Hopper approached it with caution, rifle drawn and pointed as he nudged it with his foot. With a sigh of relief, he announced it wasn’t going anywhere.

And then they heard the click of mechanism unlocking, and the following clink of a door chain dropping. On alert, they all turned to face the door and whatever new nightmare fuel awaited them behind it.

As the door inched open, a set of tiny feet in white basketball shoes and scrunched up around them stepped through. What followed was a girl the kids’ age, hair slicked back and eyes lined heavily in kohl, wearing the sort of dark and depressing clothes the kids who listened to the Smiths and spent too much on clove cigarettes did.

Hop lowered his gun, as the girl met eyes with Nancy’s little brother and smiled, wiping away the blood dripping from her nose.

“Mike.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that this one took so long, it took me awhile to figure out how I wanted to change the events from the show to suit the story. Apologies for the lack of Billy, I promise that next chapter will include a portion from his perspective to make up for it!


	6. Catch the Pearl and Ride the Dragon’s Wings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Rumor has it..."
> 
> -Adele

**Sunday November 4th, 1984**

There she was, digging through trash again.

The sight and feeling was getting much too familiar for comfort, Stevie decided as she picked up a mess of Christmas lights. But she could hear Nancy beside her, considering a small air conditioning unit before discarding it.

She thought for a moment, and realized she needed to say it for her to understand.

She’d made peace with Jonathan, and it was high time she grew up and face up to Nance as well. She owed it to her, especially after how things had ended between them. She didn’t want them to resent each other.

She wasn’t sure if she could handle it if Nancy Wheeler hated her.

“You should go with Jonathan.”

Nancy hesitated, still not meeting her eyes as she looked around for an exit to this conversation. Stevie sighed, brushing her bangs out of her face. She’d just made so much progress with Jon; was it too much to ask to finish this night on decent terms with her ex?

“No, I’m not just gonna leave Mike”, she stuttered, kicking aside some rusted parts. There was tension in her jaw that said that she wanted to follow him, that told her how much she was holding herself back.

“No one’s leaving anyone”, Stevie reminded her gently, passing over the lights for her consideration. Nancy nodded, and she took them. Their hands brushed as she did, and she pulled away.

Stevie stepped back and looked at her for a moment.

“Y’know, I might’ve been a pretty shitty girlfriend, but it turns out I’m a pretty damn good babysitter.”

It felt odd to put the word out there for her to hear out loud instead of just living in her head. It had been something she’d wanted for so long, but now she knew she had to let go of. It tore at her heart, but her lungs breathed cool, crisp air with no problem, and her hands only shook a little bit. She was going to be okay.

“Stevie…”

Nancy sounded heartbroken, and was reaching out one hand to rest on her cheek. She was on the verge of tears, and Stevie couldn’t afford to cry again. She didn’t have the energy, or the time, and she didn’t want Max making fun of how much her mascara had run.

Besides, she’d already cried all over Byers, and she didn’t think it was fair to ruin Nancy’s jacket too.

So she moved away slowly and with care, to let her know that _yes, this is over_, but _no, I’m not running away again_.

“It’s okay, Nance”, she said simply, almost matter-of-fact. “It’s okay.”

Because for the first time in a long time, she knew it would be.

][][][][][][][][][][][

“I’m gonna lose my fucking mind.”

Stevie was pacing around in circles, her hands on her hips. She felt like she was on one of those ‘very special episodes’ on Full House.

‘Stay inside after dark, kids, or the monster from another dimension will get you!’

Yeah, sounded about right.

Her hair was definitely good enough to be John Stamos. She was _obviously _the cool one.

But she’d been awake for close to forty-eight hours by this point, and Dustin had just had her shove dead nightmare fuel into the Byers’ fridge. It had been wrapped in an old afghan blanket, and was starting to reek of dark and damp things.

She knew she was never getting that smell out of her jacket.

“Mike, would you stop already?” Lucas hissed as Mike swept up the same pile of glass at his feet for the fifth time. His hands were clutching onto that poor broom for dear life before, but at his friend’s words, he threw it to the ground. He trembled, his whole body straining to stay still.

“You weren’t in there, okay, Lucas? That lab is swarming with _hundreds _of those dogs!”

“Demo-dogs!” Henderson hollered from the kitchen, still inspecting the dead one in his friend’s fridge.

“The Chief will take care of her”, Lucas reminded him, though seeming to forget the heated exchange between Mike and Hopper after the initial wonder at Eleven’s appearance. She’d heard them shouting from inside Jonathan’s room, and it hadn’t been pretty.

“Like she needs protection”, Max sniffed, rolling her eyes. The earlier rejection still stung, apparently.

“Hey, if a coach calls a play in the game, _bottom line_, you execute it, okay?” Stevie wanted them to just shut up, sit still and just let the adults take over for now. They’d done enough. They’d done more than enough.

Stevie was just tired of fighting for her life.

“We’re not even in the game, we’re on the bench.”

Mike was pouting, and he looked like all of the happiness he’d found with Eleven had drained from him with her departure. He scowled up at her, and Stevie had to remind herself that this was a kid, and no, she couldn’t just cut him with words until he felt two inches tall and let her keep doing her fucking job. And he _knew _it, too.

The little twerp was a chip off the old block.

Nancy certainly had taught her brother everything she knew about riling up Stevie Harrington, because here she was, faced with another Wheeler and at a loss of what to do. He knew she had to play nice, and she knew they couldn’t play ball.

They were at an impasse.

_What else is new? _

“R-right, so my point is…” she trailed off, seeing that none of the kids were buying what she was selling. “Right, so we _are _on the bench, so… there’s nothing we can do.”

“That’s not entirely true”, Dustin reminded them, emerging from the kitchen. “I mean, these demo-dogs have a hive mind. Like when they ran away from the bus, they were called away.”

“So if we can distract them”, started Lucas, fiddling with his slingshot thoughtfully.

“Then we can lure them away from the lab”, Max finished, a new gleam in her eye.

“Clear a path to the gate”, Mike murmured, looking up through his bangs and wrinkling his nose.

Jesus, Stevie hated this. It was like they all shared one big brain, exactly like the thing controlling Little Byers and making the town’s pumpkins go bad. And it made them fucking _crafty_.

She was not prepared for this level of babysitting.

So she tried to make a point. 

“And then we _all die_.” Stevie explained, waving her hands around the room. “Don’t you understand that—“

“Yeah, but think of the others!” Henderson interrupted her. She loved the kid, but this was _not helping right now_.

While she and Dustin argued back and forth, Mike shot over to a corner of Will’s map and pulled it free. “I’ve got it!”

Everyone rushed to look, as he smoothed out the crumpled sheet of paper under lamplight. It had a huge black hole scribbled furiously in crayon at the center, and it seemed to suck away all of the light that touched it. It had branches leading in and out, but was one concentrated mass, unlike the rest of the sheets of paper littering the house.

Stevie shivered.

“This is a hub. See how all the tunnels lead into here? Maybe if we set this on fire…”

“NOPE, that’s a no”, Stevie cut in. She was not going on another fucking adventure, let alone letting the kids go down into the pits of hell to play with fire. She was fresh out of badass tonight, and she sure as hell wasn’t letting the kids even try to pull this off.

“The Mind Flayer would call away his army,” Dustin added, adjusting the map and furrowing his brow.

Lucas jumped in, justifying their point. “They’d all come to stop us.”

“And then we can circle back round the exit, and by the time they realize that we’re gone…”

Mike allowed his voice to trail off, thoughtful, but Max picked up where he left off.

“El would be at the gate!”

Her eyes were shining with a new light after having been rebuffed, ignoring Eleven’s rejection to adopt the same relentless enthusiasm as the boys.

But Stevie was having none of it.

That, and this back-and-forth where the little shits kept picking up each others’ thoughts was making her dizzy.

“Hey, hey, hey!” She clapped her hands, trying to distract them from their train of thought. This was getting closer and closer to dangerous, and _fast. _

Her hands on her hips and a dish towel over one shoulder, she looked down at them, shaking her her.

“This isn’t happening.”

“But—“

“NO buts. I promised that I’d keep you shitheads safe, and that’s exactly what I plan on doing. We’re staying here, on the bench, and waiting for the starting team to do their job. Does everybody understand that?”

“This isn’t some stupid sports game!” Mike spat, his face twisting as he spoke. The little shit was lucky his sister was so hot, or Stevie would _not _be very nice right now. She was tired, she was on edge and she was about to lose her fucking shit—

“I said”, she grabbed her dish towel and waved it at Mike. “_Does everybody understand?_”

Stepping back, she looked around at the guilty faces surrounding her. They knew that she’d been assigned the task of keeping them safe and secure and inside the Byers’ house.

“I need a yes.”

Before any of them could answer, they were interrupted by something unexpected.

The sound of a car driving up dragged them all to crowd around the window facing the front yard, and Max squirmed her way up to the very front.

From outside, Stevie could see the bright white of headlights cut through the black sky, bumping along the unpaved road leading up to the Byers’ home. She heard the rumble of an engine, heavy in the ominous silence of the night.

It was definitely not Hopper’s Jeep, or Mrs. Byers’ Pinto. It wasn’t even Jonathan’s crappy car.

“Oh fuck.”

Max had gone pale, eyes wide and shoulders tense.

“That’s my brother.”

Turning to the others, her nostrils flared, she trembled. “He’s gonna kill me.”

Stevie shook her head. She didn’t know what kind of jackass the guy outside heading up the drive was, but she knew he wasn’t getting his hands on Max. She’d had a long fucking weekend, and was pretty sure the Chief of the Hawkins Police Department would give her a pass after the shit that she’d seen and the shit that they’d done.

Looking down to meet Max’s gaze, she clenched her hands, empty but ready. She blew air out of her nose and shook her head.

“No, he’s not.”

][][][][][][][][][][

Billy Hargrove had been an asshole for a long, long time.

He was used to getting treated like one. He treated people like shit and laughed in their faces when they spat on his shoes. Girls, especially.

He liked fucking with people almost as much as he enjoyed _fucking _them. So when they fell into bed with a guy who treated them like trash and got dropped cold once something better came along, he just laughed and said ‘_I told you so_’.

Stevie Harrington was nothing new. She was just the next in a string of pretty, popular girls.

Sure, she’d taken initiative. That was rare, even back in California, but even her initial hard-to-get act had been pulled out on Billy before. He’d seen her watching him in gym class, at the pool even after he got up in her face and kicked her ass out of the top spot. He’d seen the hunger in her eyes, there with the disgust of being called out by the newbie. He knew he was hot shit, and she definitely knew it too.

So yeah, he’d been eager to get those little shorts off when she dropped into his lap. He’d even been a gentleman for once and got her off _twice _without even shucking off his jeans. But then she’d decided that their time together was over long before he’d even gotten started. He’d been planning a whole night together after the police station, still wanted to hear her moans echo through that big house of hers. He wanted to see her on her knees, see her come around his dick this time. He wanted to hear her scream his name again.

Then she practically bit his head off when he’d asked exactly what she’d had to do to get them off scott-free. Well, yeah, he might’ve asked if she’d sucked off the Chief of Police to get out of posting bail, but he hadn’t been serious.

Okay, maybe he’d been a little serious.

A lot serious.

But to be entirely fair, he’d spent Tuesday night of his first week in town hearing from Tommy and Carol about all the skanky shit Harrington used to get up to. There were stories of faceless hookups at bars the town over, supplemented by a fake ID and some flirting with the bouncer and bartender. He’d been regaled by tales of Stevie giving blowjobs in cars parked in public places, of her going into a closet with a guy at a party on a dare and coming out without underwear. She’d been around the block and rung all the doorbells, or so they made it seem.

From the way she’d snapped at him when he brought up the cop she’d been speaking to, the one who’d nailed him with one speeding ticket for going 100 in a 40, they may have exaggerated. She did seem to linger with him, speaking in low voices about having to shoulder a burden he knew absolutely nothing about.

Because in what universe would Queen Stevie have it hard?

She lived in a big, fancy house, her folks were always out of town and she had her pick of the litter when it came to friends, dates, _everything. _She was the top athlete at school, and she was so pretty that she could bat her eyes and get away with murder.

She had it _all. _

Except his dick,_ in her_, despite his best efforts, but that was besides the point— what in the Hell could Stevie Harrington of all people have to worry about?

As he drove, he smoked through the five cigarettes he had left in his pack, brow furrowed and eyes narrow.

Max was really putting a fucking wrench in his plans.

He’d assumed he’d get to take Gina Paterson out for burgers and a quick roll in his backseat, and then Neil had gotten all up in his business and threatened to kick his ass if he didn’t find that dumbshit kid.

Mrs. Wheeler had been more than helpful in helping him locate his pain in the ass of a step-sister, since apparently it was too much to ask to expect her to actually stick around inside the house until their parents got home.

She’d also been very blonde, and very well put together.

And she had a nice rack.

That had certainly helped him lay on the charm, as he’d let the porch light give his California smile a glint, and catch on the earring he knew was the most wild thing she’d seen since seeing White Snake’s ‘Here I Go Again’ video on MTV.

He could tell just by looking at her that she probably got off on the laundry machine. God knew that lump of a husband didn’t have the balls to even try and keep up with that mid-life suburban sex-drive.

Fucking jackass.

But what had shocked him had been when she’d called out to him once more as he walked away, pulling him back to the doorstep to ask about her daughter.

“I haven’t seen her since Friday morning…”, Karen Wheeler had whispered, her arms wrapped around her dressing gown. “I’m not sure where to look, or even where to start…”

“Sorry, Mrs. Wheeler, I don’t know where you could find her”, Billy had replied, blinking his eyes and meeting hers once more to impart the sincerity of his words. “I really don’t know Nancy that well.”

He turned to go, but froze when he heard her speak again.

“She told me she’s at Stevie’s house, but I know that that’s not true. She came home crying after school, and said that they weren’t friends anymore. Something about Jonathan and a party…”

Clenching his jaw, he resisted the urge to pull out a new pack of smokes and punch the side of their house. Fucking Stevie Harrington. He couldn’t shake her.

That, and he’d had his suspicions every since her standoff with Tommy on Friday.

He’d heard about what had happened the year prior.

How she’d befriended Nancy Wheeler, thrown a party and how Jonathan Byers had stalked through the woods to take pictures of them getting changed out of wet clothes.

He’d heard in vivid detail how angry she’d been to discover the prints, how she’d broken a camera and spat on Byers’ face. He’d listened to Carol sneer about how Nancy Wheeler had still let the creep into her room, and how Stevie had been the one to find them in each others’ arms.

But then he’d been told about the incident at the movie theater 

Yeah, maybe Stevie was a bitch, and spray-painting some mean names on a billboard was petty, but it wasn’t even close to earning her the beating that had followed.

Tommy and Carol refused to talk about it. Actually, it was just Carol, who had looked guilty, and her boyfriend wouldn’t meet his eyes when he’d asked. He’d caught her giving him a forbidding expression when he’d made to open his mouth, and then stopped. Instead, Carol reluctantly mentioned how the cops had shown up, and Stevie had ended up with a black eye, a bloody nose and seven stitches in her left brow, let alone the concussion that had followed.

It had taken some flirting with Gina Paterson to get the whole story to come to light. He’d been charming, and had even managed a date out of the interaction—not that he had been able to make it, especially after how much of a pain in his ass Neil was being tonight.

After he’d pressed his palm along her jaw and whispered dirty things in her ear, Gina was an open book. She’d babbled out the story in hushed tones, giggling as she told him how Stevie’s big mouth pushed Jonathan Byers to _beat her to the ground. _

She’d been almost gleeful in giving him the play-by-play; about Nancy going up to confront Stevie only to be put in her place, and Byers trying to play the white knight and defend her honor up until Stevie started talking smack about his family.

Apparently, that had been enough to earn her more than a smack.

“The worst part is”, Gina had hissed, her eyes darting side to side as if to ensure no one was listening. “Is that the next thing anyone knows, Stevie Harrington, Nancy Wheeler and Jonathan Byers are all best friends. Like, it’s not _normal_.”

“The thing people seem to forget these days is, Stevie and Byers fucking _hated _each other up until last fall”, she continued, her expression growing more serious. “And all of the sudden, after the three of them miss a couple days of school, and the next thing you know, they’re meeting up between classes and hanging out together at lunch, and out in town too.”

She’d looked disturbed, as she’d repeated; “_It’s not normal.”_

Billy was drawing his own conclusions, from some weird, fucked-up love triangle to satanic brainwashing, before he settled on the most obvious. After Tommy had riled her at swim practice, he knew the truth. He had seen the jealousy burn in her eyes as she pretended not to hear, saw her reach down to squeeze her thigh with white knuckles until they finally dove into the pool.

He knew what a broken heart looked like, no matter how hard she tried to hide behind the ice bitch she whipped out when she got vulnerable.

He’d noticed the night she’d dragged him upstairs to screw in Tina’s guest bedroom, even after setting a new record for a Hawkins Keg King. It was kind of dumb how easy it was to impress small-town kids, but even almost a full minute of chugging wasn’t enough for him to be oblivious to the exchange between Harrington and Wheeler.

All over some freak, Pat from his Social Studies class had muttered as they passed a joint between them. A waste of good tail, he’d added between coughs. 

But the pieces all added up to paint a horrifyingly familiar picture.

Stevie Harrington was in love with Jonathan Byers.

The thought made him sick to his stomach.

And it reminded him of how his mom had made excuses for years for Neil, promising that he didn’t mean it and he loved them but just _too much_. About enough for him to hate him.

And that made him want to grab Stevie Harrington by the shoulders and shake her until she saw sense, because she was so much better than some degenerate prick who just punched his problems in the face until they went away.

It made him want to scream and rage and beat his hands bloody against the creep’s face, because he resented that bitch too much to ever compare her to his mother. That, and thinking of her moaning under him in the same breath as his mom made his stomach roll.

And yet still, he knew that Stevie Harrington was better than an abusive, violent asshole.

_Yeah, Hargrove. She definitely deserves better than that._

Ignoring the little voice whispering in his ear, he carried on, turning down an exit near the southern border of this tiny shithole town. Billy hated it here, with the grey skies and humidity that fucked with his hair and no waves or sun or surfing and no _freedom_—

The smell of cow shit made him want to puke.

When he sat awake at night, fully clothed and knee bouncing, elbows and forearms flat against his thighs with hands clasped so hard he could see the bones in them, he could smell it, creeping up through the walls of the tiny house they all lived in, feel it burn the inside of his nose until he couldn’t stand to sit anymore and had to pace around, a cigarette in one hand and a can of Miller Lite in the other.

That scared him, he thought.

Or maybe, it was the sound of Neil’s footsteps down the hall, pounding in his ears as he counted each one, and held his breath as he hesitated in front of Maxine’s door and then only breathed out when he moved on, before his own was ripped open and he was hauled out on his ear like an unruly child.

It was probably the screech of Max’s window being slammed open, of her sneakers scrabbling over the edge or how she always caught her skateboard on the frame. Because he knew that it meant Neil’s shadow looming over him and telling him to _sit, stay _and finally, _fetch_.

That was the worst thing he could have ever done to him, and he knew it. Billy hated being told what to do; he listened to no one and nothing but himself. Neil held that power in his fist, gathering the fabric of his son’s shirt as he tried to hold back tears and weakness in front of a man who would snap at the tiniest whiff. He took joy in it, Billy knew, watching the fight drain out of him and watch helpless as he tore any hope away.

He knew how to turn words into knives that cut in a way that his fists and feet never could, and ran them home the soft underbelly that Billy had thought he had turned into hard muscle.

But it had to happen; he had to weather the storm. He hated it so much more than he could ever put into words, but it was necessary.

Because if Billy didn’t find Maxine, Neil would find Billy.

And if Neil didn’t find Billy, well then…

He would find Maxine.

And then it would all go to Hell; for all of them, this time.

Gritting his teeth, he revved the engine and dared the cops to try and catch him when he drifted off of Main Street to a little wooded exit just past the town square.

This tiny little rinky-dink town didn’t even have a mall. A fucking _mall_.

Instead, it was just one mom and pop shop after another, with gossip-hounds manning the registers and looking down their noses at his scrounged-up crumpled ones and pennies. He could practically hear the whispers following after him, about their shithole in the bad part of Hawkins and the strange noises coming out of it that people only heard after dark.

Billy couldn’t decide if they were talking about the screams of the bitches he fucked or the sounds of him coughing up blood after Neil kicked him in the chest one time too many, or of Susan begging him to _please for the love of God, please stop, he’s your **son**_, or even of Max scrambling to get out of the way when he was being dragged down the hallway by his hair.

He didn’t want to know which one they were snickering about behind his back.

He just wanted to know who he should hit for spreading the rumor in the first place.

_She deserves better than that. _

Scowling, he pushed his foot down on the gas until he felt the power of the car run through him, racing through twists and turns in the dark. He almost hit what looked like a squirrel, but it ran off before he could get a good look.

_Even the fucking wildlife is stupid here. _

As he pulled up to the Byers house, he noted with a sneer that somehow, some way, they had managed to find an even shittier hole than the one Neil had picked up on Cherry Lane.

To be frank, it looked like someone had driven a semi through the front of their living room and tried to paste the pieces back together.

Or at least, it looked that way from where he idled.

That, and it needed fresh coat of _everything_.

But nothing prepared him for _Stevie fucking Harrington_ walking out of Byers’ shack, looking worse for wear it was so sudden and jarring that it felt like when he lost his balance under a crashing wave back home in California. It left his ears ringing and his breath short, and he felt the taste of salt rise up in his mouth.

He couldn’t tell if it was the memory of the ocean or blood from Neil’s backhand.

Remembering how he currently looked was an extra slap on the ass. He wanted to turn around and leave, forget that he’d ever been out there in the first place, but he knew that she’d seen him and his headlights, and so he cursed and got out of the car.

Her expression moved from anger to shock, as she stared at him, mouth hanging open as if he’d popped out of a fucking jack-in-the-box. Apparently, she wasn’t expecting him to be at creepy Byers’ house late on a Sunday.

“Am I dreaming or is that you, Harrington?”

His voice shook just enough for him to pull a sleazy smirk onto his face. He knew the bruises had started to develop, and he was praying to anyone who’d listen that she couldn’t see them in the half-light of the porch.

He was still shaky after Neil, and the way he’d been grabbed by the throat didn’t exactly make talking easy. Smoking hadn’t calmed his nerves any, and it had left him wincing when he sucked the smoke down.

Even so, as he hoped the dark would forgive his father’s sins, he could see her, hair loose and windswept like when she wrenched her swim cap off to glare at him in the pool, or after he’d made her come so hard that she’d screamed his name—

Billy still got off to that, the sound of her voice breathy and breaking as she trembled so deliciously, her lips forming the letters as she thrashed her head back and forth and her eyes clenched shut, practically weeping. It was something special, that sight and that sound.

It made him come so hard he saw spots.

It really did it for him, the thought of the pretty, popular rich girl begging him for more, shrieking _yes_ and _more_ and _BILLY!_ She looked at him like something she’d scraped off the bottom of her shoe but she still fell into _his _lap that night, led _him_ upstairs and _screamed his fucking name when she came._

The dish towel slung over one shoulder and the hands on her hips reminded him of how she’d be more likely to bite than bark around him these days. She looked like the nagging wife on a pathetic prime-time sitcom.

He missed the idea of her lips on his dick.

“Yeah, yeah… Don’t cream your pants, now.”

_Fuck, I just might. _

Her voice was weary, and she seemed more than a little shaken. The response had seemed almost automatic, and she still seemed like she couldn’t quite believe he was standing before her. Her face was pale and drawn, her hands were also nicked, grasping and releasing. Stevie Harrington was clearly not having a good night.

_Perfect, _Billy thought, though not because he’d also just been through the ringer, but because his baby blues had just touched down on the curve of her hips where those hands rested, accusing.

She was a vision in denim, dressed head to toe in jeans. The only exceptions were those little white sneakers of hers and a tucked-in Rush t-shirt. He’d seen cover-folds with less appeal, if he was being honest. Maybe it was just because he’d seen what was underneath, but damn. Those pants were doing her _good. _

In fact, he was just waiting for her to turn around so he could just watch as she went. He knew he just wouldn’t be able to help but stare.

“What’re you doing here, baby?”

His gaze raked over her as she paced on Byers’ porch, filled with the same frantic energy as the night of the Halloween party. The corners of his lips lifted as he remembered how she’d chosen to expend that energy, all _please _and _more_. And then he remembered the abrupt end to that night.

“I could ask you the same thing, _baby_”, she simpered, rolling her eyes. Clearly, Stevie the bitch was back in play. She had gotten over the shock of him showing up out of the blue. She stalked forward to meet him where he stood, condescension dripping from her expression as she took in his appearance.

It felt a lot like that kick to the nuts she’d delivered the first day they’d met.

He didn’t like that she had the power to make him feel that way. _No one _got to do that shit to Billy Hargrove.

His good mood ruined, he moved on to the reason he was even there in the first place.

“Looking for my step-sister. A little birdie told me she was here.”

Stevie clenched her jaw and scowled, but shook her head, as if confused once more. Until a light must’ve switched on, because her features shuttered and her mouth snapped shut.

God, if he hadn’t spent hours dreaming of how to get her to finally shut the hell up…

But she was clearly hiding something. And he didn’t have time for this angry flirting shit she did. He was tired, and he wanted to go home, jerk off and ice his throat.

“Small, redhead, bit of a bitch?”

“Haven’t seen any little girls around. Nope. None.”

Stevie was shit at lying. That much was apparent. She rushed the words out so quickly she almost stumbled over them. She had somehow managed to go even paler than she’d started off, and Billy was starting to wonder if she was just bleeding it all out of her hands or if the moonlight was just doing something weird to her skin.

“I don’t know, baby, this whole situation”, he started, his hands moving through the air as he tried to will the words to come out. “It gives me the heebie-jeebies.”

“And why’s that?”

Christ, she looked like she believed he was stupid enough to ignore how _fucking weird this all was_?

“My thirteen-year-old sister goes missing all day, I find her with _you_, at Jonathan Byers’ house of all places, and you’re here _lying to me_?”

He stepped forward and opened a pack of smokes, shaking out a new one. He lit it and began to suck down the nicotine so he didn’t lose his fucking shit.

Stevie hadn’t said a word, and was staring at him dead-on, barely four feet away. She was breathing hard, but her mouth was closed. For once, _blessed silence. _

Until she had to go ahead and say something. _Fucking typical. _

“She’s not here.”

“Oh yeah?” He cocked a brow and nodded to the house behind her. Maxine, some nerd in a hat and that Sinclair kid were there, half-crouched and staring. “Then who’s that?”

Neil wouldn’t like Maxine hanging around the Sinclair kid. Not one bit.

_She should know better. I need to remind her why she should know better. _

“Oh, shit!”

Stevie pushed against him, trying to keep him from stepping forward. Grunting, he wrestled her off and shoved her down to the ground. He then went to step over her, but her hand shot out and grabbed his ankle, dragging him down with her.

They fell in a twisted heap, and he struggled away from her in the dirt.

“What the hell is your problem, Hargrove?”

Her voice rang out, indignant. Her cheeks were beginning to redden, and she was clenching her fists, as bloody as they were. He felt anger boil up, as he swore, knowing that he was about to play his hand. He shoved her away and got to his feet, dusting off his jacket.

He lit another cigarette, having lost the other one in the previous tussle. He smoked it desperately, sucking it down to keep himself from screaming at her.

It was so early in the game, but he was so fucking frustrated that if he didn’t say something, he’d do something even more terrible.

“I just have a fucking problem believing that Queen Stevie managed to turn into this pathetic mess”, he sneered with disdain, lip curled in disgust as he watched her struggle to find that cutting tongue that she was so well known for.

She stood up, the humiliation shining in her eyes, her hands raking through her hair, catching red through her bangs. He wasn’t even sure if she was noticed. She was definitely flustered.

He also had a bad feeling about where she’d gotten those sliced-up fingers and knuckles. He could see at least one broken window in this shithole.

Things did not bode well for Jonathan Byers. He clenched his fists.

“I have a problem with how the top bitch at Hawkins High is falling over herself for some creep that’s fucking her best friend”, Billy spat, his eyes flashing and his words punctuated by smoke. “I have a problem with you hoping that the freak who beat your face in last year will throw you a bone.”

He loomed over her now, and he could feel a vein throbbing in his left temple as his teeth ground together. She looked terrified as his words registered and she began to knead at her thighs with her nails.

He couldn’t help it. He was just so fucking _mad_ that she thought it was okay, and that he knew why she was here, and it made him want to drive his car through that busted living room wall.

“I have a problem with you thinking you deserved it.”

“But I did”, she stuttered out, voice gasping and hesitant as if she was about to cry. “I really, really _was _asking for it.”

Billy’s vision went red.

This was the wrong thing to say.

][][][][][][][][][

Hands were on her shoulders, giving her a single, violent shake as noise roared in her ears.

It turned out that that noise was Billy’s delirious, unrelenting laughter. It was manic, and his blue eyes burned bloodshot.

Stevie just stood there, in shock as Billy Hargrove lost his shit, and waited for him to recover with white-knuckles anxiety. Somehow, some way, he _knew. He fucking knew. _

_Her life was over. He would destroy her in a heartbeat. _

After a few moments where she was left to her thoughts, he closed his lips and then pulled them back, baring his teeth.

“I don’t know what kind of backwards, fucked-up shit they teach you fucking hicks”, he began as her stomach dropped through her ankles and she knew it was _over for her. _

“But there is nothing, and I mean _nothing_ that a woman can do that means that she deserves to get her nose broken by a man.”

All of the air in the world left her lungs. He wasn’t talking about Nance at all.

_He didn’t know. _

But then _what the hell was he talking about?_

Billy continued on, nostrils flaring and practically shouting at this point.

“I don’t know if you’re just drinking Byers’ Kool-Aid and he’s got you thinking that you earned that shit, or if his old man told him it was a good idea to beat the crap out of a woman, but—“

“_Shut up!_”

Stevie cut him off as she realized exactly what he was implying, and the disgust that filled her when she heard him say those things. Without a thought, she pushed him to the ground with all of the might she had, and regretted instantly that she hadn’t just slapped him in the face instead.

_No one _talked shit about her friends like that, even if said friend was currently AWOL with her ex and _definitely _getting it on with her somewhere. All of those saving-the-world hormones and endorphins and all that shit.

“Shut the _fuck up_, you PRICK!”

As he struggled to get up after she knocked the air out of him, she planted her foot on his chest, kicking him down once more. “You don’t know _shit!”_

She’d heard the rumors fly after her standoff with Nance and Jonathan at the theater. She’d also thought she’d stomped out any remnants of it with a heavy boot.

“Jon might have spent most of his life dealing with assholes who think beating up kids is an A+ parenting technique, but that gives you _no right to make those assumptions, you asshole!”_

As she backed off, having made her point, Hargrove struggled to his feet eyes wide and burning. He looked like he wanted to hit her. Only, she knew he wouldn’t.

Clearly, if the thought of someone else doing it was enough to make him that upset, he’d never do it himself. She could see that. But she could also see that he really, _really _wanted to.

It struck a pang in her stomach, and her throat began to feel tight. It made her upset to think that she’d pushed a person so far that they’d consider stepping over a line drawn so deep in the sand.

She was supposed to be a better person. She was just dragging everyone around down with her, and this needed to stop.

She figured she could at least give him the truth. He deserved that much, at least.

“It was Nancy, not Jonathan. She’s the one who hit me.”

Billy Hargrove reared back, no less angry, but instead breathed out once and shook his head.

“We’re not done here, you and me”, he hissed, eyes narrowed. “This isn’t over.”

And then he pushed past her, knocking her over as he made a bee-line for the front door.

][][][][][][][][][][

“_You are so dead, Sinclair!”_

“No, _you _are.”

Tapping Billy Hargrove on the shoulder, having sprinted into the house as soon as she’d gotten to her feet, Stevie punched him in the face. She did it with barely a thought, arm outstretched and her shoulder leading. Pain bloomed across her knuckles, and she felt the skin holding tenuously together split.

Hargrove started to laugh, but Stevie didn’t have time for this shit a second time.

The asshole was threatening a _child. _

_A fucking child. _

A child, who he’d clearly been laying into for awhile, from what she’d heard tearing into the living room from outside.. Let alone his sister, who was clearly fucking terrified of him.

Christ, in a past life, she’d been a bully, sure. Petty, certainly. But never to children.

She wanted to give her victims a fighting chance, at least.

This was beyond low. This was pathetic and _weak. _

It almost made her laugh to think that the guy she’d been convinced was trying to wrestle power away from her was so pathetic and small. But instead, she spat on the ground near his feet and swore.

She wasn’t sure if she’d fractured her hand, but goddamn did it ever hurt.

Billy got himself together and turned his face to the light, revealing a bloody nose.

“Looks like you’ve got some fire in you after all, Harrington!” He sounded breathless, and he was bleeding onto the crimson silk shirt he was wearing. Half-buttoned, and he’d shucked off the jacket he’d been wearing over it. He wouldn’t have been out of place in a Dee Snider lookalike contest, she thought snidely.

He looked like such a fucking douche in it that Stevie was surprised she’d held off so long before resorting to outright physical violence.

He exhaled with a whoosh, and faced her.

“Does this mean that I’ll get to see everything everyone’s been telling me about?”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” She spat the words out as she rubbed at her knuckles. It felt like she was only smearing blood around, so she stopped.

“I’ve heard some real fun shit about you and the boys’ basketball team, baby”, Hargrove mocked, tossing his head back, tongue out between his teeth and his hands held out, grasping an invisible waist and thrusting his hips crudely—

“Get out.”

Her voice was shaking, but the finger she extended to point to the door was dead steady.

She _burned _from the inside. Because he didn’t get to talk to her like that.

_Especially not in front of the kids, for god’s sake. _

But Hargrove apparently hadn’t gotten that message, because of getting out like a good boy when she asked nicely, instead he chuckled without humor and lowered himself to face her eye-to-eye, sliding his hands down to his knees.

He sneered at her, looking down his nose as he spoke to her as if she was a child who didn’t know better.

“No one tells me what to do.”

And then he stood and turned so quickly that Stevie jumped back, and she was glad that she did, because a plate shattered where she’d stood a second before. Her heart pounding and chest tight, she dove away from the kitchen into the dining room.

_Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. _

She heard the sound of more broken ceramic, and felt some of the sharps scrape past her, skidding off her jeans. As she chanced a look back, she saw the kids had taken cover behind the sofa, and Hargrove was advancing towards her, now fixated like a bull seeing red.

_FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, FUCK!_

Scrambling away, Stevie reached back against the armoire she was pressed back into, feeling the hope drain away when she realized that she wouldn’t get away, not this time, and that after he’d dealt with her he’d go for the _kids_, _please not the kids,_ as he stepped closer and closer, until she felt…

Holy fuck.

Karma _was _real, and the universe was totally rewarding her for her hard work, because that was the extra syringe of sedative that they’d had ready in case Will woke up. She felt the weight rise from where it sat on her lungs and vanish entirely, as her fingers curled around it.

She fought so, _so _hard to keep the smirk from rising up on her face.

This had to be a surprise, or he’d see it coming and just grab it away.

Stevie tensed at the thought that he’d turn it on her. Because then, she had no chance of keeping the children safe, and whether or not Billy hurt any of them, there were still those demo-things out there, and they just couldn’t get enough of the fresh blood coating her hands and dripping from Billy’s nose.

“_NO!”_

Dustin had charged out from where they were hiding, armed with a lamp and heading straight for Hargrove as he closed in on her. He whipped his head away to face him, and in that moment, Stevie yanked the cap off the needle and slammed it into his neck.

Plunging it home, she let her hand fall back to her side and stepped back, breathing hard.

Reaching up to remove the needle from his neck, Billy seemed dazed, but hadn’t dropped like Will had. He stared at it a moment, before looking back at her.

“What the hell is this?”

He sounded disappointed, and almost hurt as he slurred the words just a little. He swayed slightly, and then fell, his head straining upwards as he began to make gurgling sounds, fighting to remain conscious.

Stevie stood back, jaw hanging open because she couldn’t quite believe that Billy Hargrove was finally harmless. For the first time since they’d met, he _wasn’t a threat. _

She still couldn’t quite believe it. In fact, she was half-certain that he was faking just to throw them off, only to tear away any shred of hope they’d had at getting out of this unscathed.

As she pondered this thought, Max marched past her with an air of calm that Stevie could not for the life of her emulate in life-or-death situations, and picked up the nail bat, still bloody.

She stepped over Billy’s legs, strewn awkwardly on the ground, and extended it towards his face. 

“From now on, you leave me and my friends alone. You got it?”

Billy gurgled.

“Say you understand.”

Max’s voice was tearful, and she looked like she wanted to be anywhere but there in that moment. But when their eyes met and Billy said nothing, her own hardened and her mouth set in a determined line.

Screaming out in voiceless rage, Max swung the bat down a bare inch from his crotch, her small frame trembling as the nails splintered the wooden floor.

Her hair in her eyes but her head already swinging back, she bared her teeth and pulled the bat back up from where it had stuck. It hovered over him, pulled back behind her ear as if she was about to hit a home run.

Her eyes were wide and wild like his.

“_SAY YOU UNDERSTAND!”_

In that moment, Stevie witnessed something she never thought she’d live to see in her lifetime; Billy Hargrove, terrified.

It felt like an eternity before he answered, and when he did, she heard something she never imagined in a million years coming from between his lips.

In a choked, straining voice, he whispered, “I understand.”

It looked like it had cost him everything to get the words out, but she knew he was really, truly afraid when she smelled something sharp and disgustingly familiar.

He’d pissed his pants.

Her nose wrinkled, she watched as a small puddle formed on the floor. His eyes rolled back into his head and he slumped back, lying prone in his own urine.

She couldn’t help it.

“Gross.”

Now, whether that was a reaction to Max, or whatever she’d shot into his system, she didn’t know or even particularly care. It was only when Dustin spoke up about how he was too big for any of them to move that she mimed a gag and sighed.

This night was never going to end, was it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that took so long, I always seem to drag my feet on writing scenes that require so much dialogue from the show. I'm a bit of a stickler on my wording being the exact same as in the script for the moments that are in alignment with the canon, most of what I cut out or ignore is redundant speech.  
Thanks to everyone for the words of encouragement, your reviews make me smile :)  
Hope you like the new chapter!  
In the next one, I think I may be hitting the end of season 2, so it'll get more fixated on character development from that point on without so many action and supernatural elements to keep up with. That, and more smut ;)


	7. Strut on the Line, It's Discord and Rhyme

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Stevie throws caution (and her underwear) to the wind.

**Monday November 5th, 1984**

She was beginning to regret having volunteered to be the one to drag Billy home.

He’d been nothing but dead weight as she’d dragged him over to Jon’s car, and she’d liked it a hell of a lot better when he was too unconscious to run that big mouth of his. It was like he couldn’t help but put his foot in it, like he was doing by trying to badger her about why she had carried a baseball bat with _nails in it _into a house filled with children that she was supposedly ‘babysitting’ for Mrs. Byers.

She was ready to scream, if not for the fact that it was about four o’clock in the morning, and that she was in Billy Hargrove’s house.

Stevie was exhausted, and all she wanted was to go to sleep and try to forget about everything she’d seen in the past week.

“I can’t fucking tell you.”

Her voice seemed to echo through the room, and she leaned forwards, pressing the heels of her hands into her closed eyes. She sighed heavily and fell backwards against him, her back hitting his legs. His shins pushed against the curve of her spine and she shifted her shoulders uncomfortably.

“I’ve signed god knows how many contracts in the past year, and god knows they’ll just have me signing more after tonight. I can’t even tell my parents about the shit I’ve been through lately, and that’s the least of it all”, she babbled, staring at his ceiling. “I’m swimming in NDAs and I haven’t even graduated high school yet.”

Billy scoffed. “Fuck off, Harrington. If you really wanted to tell me, you’d tell me.”

She sat up, her hackles raised. He’d been pushing her buttons for too long.

She was in no state to suffer idiots, or assholes.

“Don’t you _think_ that if I could, I wouldn’t scream about this shit from the rooftops? _People are dead, Hargrove_. And it’s going to keep happening no matter what. No one can do anything to stop it either. All we can do is be ready”, Stevie ranted, her eyes growing wider and wider until they could open no more. “It’s not something we can ever understand or a threat we can contain, it’s just always coming until it’s _here _because it’s always waiting!”

Her breath grew short and her heart raced, and she reached down to her side to grab and clutch on for something to ground her so she didn’t feel like she was about to pass out because she was seeing black spots appear _oh god she was going to pass out_—

“Stevie! Stevie!”

Hands grabbed onto her shoulders and shook her twice as she breathed in and out and in and out and in and in and in—

She was crying and gross and pathetic and _fucking terrified because she knew it would be back, she always knew. _And then all of the sudden, her body, which was cold and hurting and tired but _numb_ wasn’t anymore.

Instead, it was surrounded by warmth, solid and giving and all around her. She felt a hand, large and rubbing careful circles into her spine and over her shoulder blades. She felt a face buried against her hair, damp and tangled as it was, and she had been pulled flat against him.

_Billy. _

He was murmuring in her ear, promising her that he wouldn’t ask again, that he’d never say a word but that she was _here, and she was safe with him, _because he was really, _really fucking sorry he’d been an asshole, but he was scared. _

It struck a chord deep within her. It resonated so deeply that in that moment, as she slowed down her breathing and just let go of the tension balled up in her stomach, she decided that it might be worth forgiving him.

Because she knew that feeling. She’d done it herself, lashing out to justify her fear.

She was working on it.

But it was good enough for now, she realized, as he tried his best to comfort her after _she’d shot a sedative straight into his jugular_. Because it seemed like he’d forgiven her too.

It had been slow, for her.

It had been when she’d brought him into the tub and rinsed him clean of her mistakes, of Max’s own terror and anger and sheer will. He’d been vulnerable, then.

But so had she, in nothing but her underwear.

The difference that this wasn’t a prelude to sex. In those moments, she was powerful.

Here, she was just trying to rinse the dust and ash from the tunnels and her own blood away. She was getting monster skin out of her hair, and inspecting her bruises for development stages. She was wincing at the cut across her brow (guess that was another scar on the same side as last time) and the state of her hands.

She wasn’t prepared for him to wake up when she sat him down in a warm bath after she’d showered them both. She hadn’t left him his dignity, as she needed to stick his boxers and jeans in the wash, and she figured fair was fair.

_I’ll show you mine if you show me yours, was it?_

Of course, the asshole had a pretty big dick.

Of fucking course.

Oh no, he couldn’t just be one of those douches who overcompensated for his small size with machismo and a shitty personality. He had to go and be one of those pricks who can back up all of those sleazy promises they made about _fucking you until you can’t walk straight, baby. _

Stevie rolled her eyes.

And of course, it was a nice dick, too.

He kept himself groomed, and it was just kept drawing her eyes to it.

Stevie wanted to turn around and close her eyes so she would stop giving in. But then she’d be vulnerable and her back would be exposed and anything could happen. She needed to stay ready.

But then he woke up when she dropped him into the bath with some effort. The guy was a block of muscle, but goddamn was he heavy. When his ass plonked to the bottom of the tub, he woke with a start, thrashing out with limbs askew and water spilling all over the tile floor. Stevie had jumped back, stuck to the wall and flinching away.

Stashed between the toilet and the sink, he’d finally laid eyes on her, and she had her arms wrapped around her knees and her head peeking out from the barrier they formed.

“_What the hell, Harrington?”_

His voice had been loud, and she had curled away even further for a moment, until she saw him wind up for more.

“Shut up!” She hissed, unwinding her body to try and get to her feet and cover his mouth. “Your parents are asleep down the hall!”

Hargrove’s face grew red and an expression that she was becoming uncomfortably familiar with crossed his features. A brief flicker of fear, but it was present. It was enough to shut him up, too, before she had to clamp a hand down over his face.

As she crawled over cautiously, she saw him take stock of himself, and realize that he was entirely naked. Slumping down into the water and burying his face in his hands, Billy seemed defeated.

“Could you please pass me my jeans?”

_Holy fuck. Billy Hargrove knows how to say please. _

It was enough of a surprise to prompt her to do it, fishing his— ew, they still smelled like piss— pants out from the tangled pile of clothes, she passed them over gingerly, dipping her hand in the bath water briefly after handing them off to get the _ick_ off of her.

He scowled at her before wrinkling his nose, bringing the denim up close to his face and sniffing. An expression of disgust and shame flooded his pretty face, which was starting to turn black and blue at the edges.

Stevie had given him a bloody nose, sure, but his chin was almost doubled in size and a mottled purple color, and she was sure that no one at the Byers’ had gotten his cheekbone, and those fingerprints on his neck were definitely from somewhere else.

So Billy was getting into fights _after _he got into fights. And she was alone in his house with him. And she’d just gotten in his face less than six hours ago.

Great.

She was still making _great choices_, wasn’t she? 

“What the fuck did you do to me after I passed out?”

Rolling her eyes, she sighed, drawing her knees up below her. Billy was rummaging through pockets, retrieving a crumpled, crushed pack of Marlboro Reds and a zippo. Tossing aside his soiled clothes, he shook out a smoke and lit it. He then set the pack down by his head and dipped in further, until the only part of him half-dry was his face; hair writhing in a wet mass of dark blond under the surface. The smell of smoke began to fill the small space, curls of white coming off from deep in the tub.

Stevie’s fingers twitched, her nose taking in the familiar scent. Fuck, she wanted a cigarette.

She deserved a cigarette after what she’d been through.

Minding her bruises, she crawled over to the lip of the bath and snatched away the pack and lighter before he could even register the sound of her movement. His eyes remained shut, though he continued to breathe out smoke.

As she took one, slotted it between her lips and lit it, Billy finally spoke up.

“Not even gonna ask, Harrington?”

“Nope”, she exhaled, her head falling back against the tile lining the combination shower and bath. He hadn’t moved past cracking an eyelid, so she allowed the rest of herself to slump along with her head. “I’ve just had a long fucking weekend, Hargrove, and all I want to do now is smoke, and then sleep.”

Silence bloomed between them, until she was forced to face her actions. She wasn’t sure why she was surprised; they’d brought her, and him here, after all.

“Why the fuck did you drug me?”

He spoke softly, and had shifted back to sit up against the front of the tub, like she’d first positioned him. They smoked without facing each other, just resting against the cold ceramic.

“You were threatening to beat a kid to death, Hargrove.”

Stevie was tired, and it showed in her voice. It was blunt and unforgiving, and she couldn’t be bothered to try and temper it. She was done.

At least, for tonight.

“If he and Max had listened when I told them to stay away from each other, then I wouldn’t have had to beat his ass”, he objected, as if it justified his actions in any way at all.

“And why in the hell would you tell them to stay away from each other?” Stevie retorted, hoping that the cigarette would do enough to keep her calm in the face of his ability to ruin her composure. “Lucas is a good kid.”

Billy paused. There was only the sound of their inhales and exhales for a moment, and of the water dripping from a wash cloth laid to dry on the edge of the tub.

“I’m sure he is, but he needs to stay away from Maxine.”

“And why exactly is that?” She’d lost any bit of patience still squirreled away after making peace with Nancy and Jonathan, after being the world’s best goddamn babysitter for almost a whole twenty-four hours and fighting the forces of evil and the United States Government.

“Tell me why he needs to stay away!”

She’d turned her head to face him now, and the hand holding her cigarette was shaking. Because Stevie had an idea of _why_, but she just wanted the words to come out of his mouth so she could call him a bigoted prick and move the fuck on with her life.

But of course, the universe had other plans.

Hesitantly, almost painfully, he opened his mouth, clearing his throat.

“Look, my dad… my old man doesn’t think that certain types of people should mix”, Billy said slowly. Stevie stiffened, but his follow-up stopped her from leaving all together. “So I try and make sure that Max is… safe from anything that would piss him off. But the thing is that if _he’s _the one to see… No matter what I do, he’s gonna…”

He looked down at the water and refused to look back up at her.

“If he sees them together, it’s just… look, it’s just not gonna end well for _anyone_.”

Well, shit.

Stevie had been half-hoping Billy Hargrove was a regular, run-of-the-mill asshole bully. Because then, she could have just snipped those fragile, tenuous feelings that she’d started to grow and not have to deal with the consequences.

Instead, she was left with a complicated mess to try and sort out.

And she knew she was going to do it, too. _Fuck_, now she was invested.

“I didn’t do anything to you after you passed out”, she mumbled, taking another drag and asking on the floor since she couldn’t be bothered. “I hauled you over to the couch, left with the kids and then came back to pick you up and get you home.”

“And where exactly did you go in between?” he questioned. “And come to think of it, you never explained why you were with my step-sister at _Byers’ _house of all places.”

She refused to answer, watching plumes of smoke drift from the cherry to curl around her fingers, which she’d emptied the Hargrove medicine cabinet of band-aids to clean up.

“Stevie.”

She started at the sound of her name escaping his lips, but still didn’t respond.

“Stevie, what the _fuck _were you doing there with Maxine?”

Taking a final puff, she ground the end of her cigarette out on the tile lining the bath tub. She exhaled.

“Can we move this to your room? I’m getting cold, and I need to find some clothes.”

And so, he’d let her half-carry him down the hall as his ankles kept giving out from under him when he tried to walk on his own. They’d almost knocked over a picture frame containing what appeared to be a family Christmas portrait of a young Billy, barely thirteen from what she could tell. In it, Max had a gap-toothed smile and pigtails, and a hard-faced blond man with a mustache stood behind them. In the corner of the frame, a woman with mousy auburn hair and a soft mouth had placed her hand on the man’s shoulder, and another on Max’s. Billy was noticeably without contact, and though not entirely sullen, she could read embarrassment on the red cheeks in the photo.

Shaking her head, she kept moving forward.

][][][][][][][][][

“Hey!”

The snap of fingers distracted her, bringing her back to the present.

She felt cold, still weak in her limbs from the adrenaline slipping away and Billy’s arms no longer around her. She didn’t know what to say, or do—

“You promise that this isn’t some serial killer shit, Harrington?”

Billy’s voice grounded her in the moment once more, and she stiffened, recoiling away to curl into a tiny ball. She shook her head so furiously that she was sure she’d pulled a muscle in her neck. Thinking of the kids, in danger, _because of her_—

It was all too much.

To her eternal embarrassment, Stevie started to cry. Sobbing, her chest rose and fell in great shudders, and her stinging hands clutched at her knees harder. She tried to hide her face, to push it all down a bottle it away for another time, but she’d been doing that for the past week.

She just didn’t have it in her to do it anymore.

So she jut let the tears run hot, until she felt her nose get stuffy and gross, and that just made her feel even _worse and she was crying more, oh god. _

“Hey, Stevie”, Hargrove was whispering, his head bowed over hers. She could feel the warmth of his chest against her back. Something soft was pressed up ever so gently to her right cheek, dripping in salt. With a tissue, he was wiping away the worst of it, until her fingers loosened and her knees came down so she could do it herself.

The thought of him seeing her like this made her want to crawl into a hole and die.

But the idea of him thinking she was capable of…

She was glad that she hadn’t had anything to eat in almost a day, or her stomach might’ve betrayed her when he spoke.

“I just… This is all really fucked up and weird, and I don’t know what the _fuck _is going on, but there was _blood on that bat, Harrington_—“

He was getting louder and louder, and she knew she had to say something before he blew their cover and woke everyone up.

“I was trying to keep them safe!”

“I-I”, she stumbled, having gotten his attention. She couldn’t tell him _anything _of real consequence or she’d be screwed and so would he. “There was… something out there. And it was trying to get at Dustin, and Lucas, and Max, and I-I— I kept them safe!”

He studied her for a moment, considering.

She felt his eyes cut through her as he did, and her cheeks heated and she looked away.

“That’s all I’ve ever wanted. For everyone to be safe from… those _things_.”

“And what exactly are those _things_ you need to keep everyone safe from?”

Fuck. He thought she was crazy.

She could hear it in his voice, see it in the way his expression turned to pity.

Stevie felt sick.

And she knew in that moment that she was going to tell him, and that meant breaking the legally-binding contracts she’d just got done signing.

But she knew that if she wanted everyone—this asshole included— to be safe, she had to come up with something close, but not quite. Something that he’d never quite buy into, but was enough to keep him out of the woods.

He’d never really believe the truth anyways, she reasoned, so why not stretch it just enough to make it fit?

“You know the government lab past the south border of town? You must’ve driven past it once or twice. It’s the building with barbed wire fencing and military patrols.”

Billy nodded slowly, his eyes narrowed.

“They’re a secret experimental base coming out with all kinds of weird shit”, Stevie continued, her fingers curling in to dig into the soft flesh of her palm, but was muffled by the two dozen band-aids she’d wrapped them in. “Well, last year, around this time, something got out, and it got Will Byers, Jonathan’s little brother.”

“I heard something about that, yeah”, Hargrove confirmed, nodding. He had relaxed slightly at the latter explanation. “Nothing about a lab, but definitely heard about Zombie Boy.”

Stevie flinched at the words, knowing that she needed to tread carefully to make her story believable—yet _unbelievable—_ enough. That, and the nickname.

Will had never come back from the dead.

He’d just been smart enough to hide until being dead wasn’t an option anymore.

“They thought he had died after they found the body in the quarry, even had a funeral and everything. But then the Chief of Police went digging, and it turns out that the lab had taken Will after he saw what they were experimenting on when it got out and tore through the woods by his house.”

Billy scoffed, but Stevie set her lips in a grim line and shook her head.

“He was in real bad shape when they found him, and the kid’s still dealing with the damage it left him with. And the worst part was that they didn’t manage to find it until it had already killed Barbara Holland, and then—“

Her throat grew thick as she thought of how Barb has breathed her last in her backyard, in her _pool—_

“And then it came to try and finish the job at the Byers’ house. Jonathan and Nancy had been trying to find it, to try and find Will and Barb, but then I barged in when shit hit the fan, and…”

She swallowed, swaying slightly.

“Tonight wasn’t the first time I’ve used that bat.”

Fuck. She’d just told him pretty much everything.

The only thing she’d left out was the fact that the monsters came from another dimension, opened up and dragged out on request by a government pushing a little girl with the power to tear through worlds into submission.

_Fuck. _

** _Fuck. _ **

She was so screwed.

Stevie needed a drink after tonight, or five. And now _this. _

There was no way that Billy Hargrove could ever keep his big mouth shut, he was too busy trying to talk a big game to ever think twice about what came out. She knew, she just fucking _knew _that he would ruin her life for _real _this time— the words she’d shouted at Nance in the library on Monday reminded her that _when you talk about this shit, you end up in solitary for treason—_without a second thought.

Her panic threatened to engulf her for a third time, and she managed to clench down on her jaw hard enough to give herself a headache but also stop her rising fear in its tracks.

Silence spread through the room as her words settled in, and Billy let out a chuckle.

“Yeah, sorry babe, but I don’t believe a word of that crap. But hey, if you can’t tell me, I guess I’ve just got to convince you that you really _want _to tell me”, he drawled slowly, shaking his head.

Holy fuck.

He was actually _that stupid_.

Thank god, she thought, breathing a sigh of relief. Thank god for Billy Hargrove’s oblivious, dumb brain. He might not graduate on time, but it meant she could fuck up and get away with it. Like, _really _fuck up.

And that was almost its own attraction in itself; the ability to stick her foot in her mouth and still not be the biggest asshole in the room.

Maybe it was the physical exhaustion, or her empty stomach or even her shaking hands, but as she trailed her eyes over him, Billy Hargrove was beginning to resemble something close to an _option_.

She really needed to get some sleep if that was where her mind was going here and now.

But his lips were so close, and his eyes were so blue, and oh god, his _chest_—

_No. You know better. _

_Don’t be that stupid, Stevie. You’re not that stupid. _

“Hey, through all the shit we’ve had to deal with tonight, there’s a silver lining, baby girl”, he smirked, one hand trailing lazily up, up and over her bare thigh. Her breath caught in her throat and made her chest flutter, licking her lips deliberately as she took in his blown-wide pupils and the bulge forming under his boxers.

“Oh yeah? And what’s that?”

“I finally have you in my bed”, he breathed, moving away to take in the whole of her. He bit those red lips of his and reached the hand rubbing at the skin of her upper thigh up, up, up to touch the sliver of skin between the towel and her hip.

That was enough for Stevie.

Lunging across the sheets, she straddled Billy’s hips, rucking the towel wrapped around her hips up. She leaned over him and pressed a searing kiss against his lips, her hands wandering over his shoulders and biceps. Groaning, she felt him grow hard beneath her, and she rocked her hips back and forth, creating friction between them.

As he reached up to lift the shirt she’d pilfered from his dresser— where she’d also found five packs of Marlboros, rolling papers and a few grams of pot, nudie mags _galore_, _the perv_—his attempts to wrestle the fabric over her head snapped her out of the haze she was beginning to settle into.

Dread sank in the pit of her stomach and the warmth forming there moments previous was drenched with the cold reality;

She shouldn’t be doing this.

Wrenching her head and her hands away, she moved to get off of him and the bed, but his hand shot out and grabbed her by the wrist. She yanked against him, but Billy refused to budge even an inch.

“No”, he growled, pupils wide and jaw clenched. “We’re not doing that shit again. You don’t get to be a tease.”

Stevie felt fear swell inside of her, and she became desperate in her attempts to get away. She pulled _hard_.

Billy’s eyes flew wide and he let her go, but sat up abruptly, face to face with her once more.

“_I know you want this_”, he breathed, inches away from where she sat, frozen. “And I know that you don’t want to stop.”

Hovering, he paused, doubt flickering across his expression.

“You… do want this, right?”

_Oh. _

She hesitated, and Billy sighed deeply, turning away. “Wait!”

He faced her once more, eyes sharp and wanting, but still inches from touching her skin with fingers floating, just waiting for her to say.

“I want this.”

She choked it out in the tiniest voice, small and shameful but unrepentant as she stared him down with burning eyes and flaming cheeks. She was full of aimless energy and desperate to feel him on her once more. Stevie couldn’t deny the dripping warmth that was forming between her thighs when she thought of fucking him.

As the words escaped her, he sighed and the tension fled his shoulders, and a new light came to his gaze, feverish and urgent. And then he grinned, licked his lips and looked her over once again.

“Then fucking _take it_.”

_Oh. _

Heat spiked through her, and she melted into him.

She’d never been treated like this before during sex. She’d always been wild; a mess of teeth and nails and _give it to me harder_.

But she’d always been the one to ask, to tell them where to grab and how tight. Billy was the first to reach out and just give it to her just right. It should have worried her from the beginning, but then he’d stopped and waited for her to say _yes, please_.

After he’d done so, she was all to ready to say just that.

Billy surged up to nip at her neck, teeth meeting the point he’d found out last time and making her tremble and shake. And then he fell back, a smirk on his pretty fucking face. The asshole.

Grabbing a hunk of her hair in his fist, he yanked it back once with a short, sharp tug that pulled at her scalp but didn’t hurt past a tiny ache that reminded her; _he’s the one in control now. _

It made her clench her legs around him and gasp, breathy and sweet. But mostly, it felt fucking _good. _

And then Billy’s lips slammed back into her own, as she was dragged back down to meet them. She sighed into his mouth, rocking her hips to try and find that same heat between them once more. The towel had fallen in a tangled heap to the side of the bed, and now she was dry-humping Billy Hargrove, wearing nothing but his shirt and writhing around on top of him as if they both weren’t still reeling from the night they’d just had.

But it didn’t matter, because his dick was one layer of fabric away and bumping against her clit _just so_ and it was turning her brain to fucking pudding. Arching her back, she bit at the skin under his jaw and squealed when his grip tightened and his other arm shot out to press her hips further into his. She did it again, and he growled, letting go of her hair to reach down and—

“Gonna make you come, baby girl.”

Stevie’s core clenched at that, and she mewled, long and slow. The shirt had been worked up to uncover her lower half, where Billy’s hands crept in.

His fingers were working up and down her slit, dipping a knuckle into her center and sliding it up to circle her clit while she shuddered, trying her best to muffle the moans he was working her through.

“So fucking wet, baby”, he whispered, running his fingers through her dripping folds for emphasis. And then he started to fuck her with his hand, curling up to reach her G-spot. She cursed and thrashed around, Billy’s arm anchoring her hips flat to the bed while his fingers were busy making her see heaven.

But Stevie wanted more.

She tried to push his head down where she wanted it, with his foul mouth lapping at her pussy and making her come over and over, like she’d been fantasizing about when she was too drunk to feel guilty about how good it felt. She hated herself in those quiet, lonely moments, where she tried desperately for pleasure to carry her to sleep and calm the need to find him and _actually have him do it until she could dream without monsters_—

Billy wasn’t having any of it, though.

He laughed and shook his head, pulling his fingers away. Stevie protested, wishing she wasn’t ready to beg for him to get back to getting her off. She whined, her hips bucking up and searching for his hands.

“If you’re gonna be greedy, baby girl, you’ve gotta do me a favor first”, he said slyly, reaching down to grasp her hand in his own to guide it over to—

_That bastard. _

Of fucking course he’d want to get off first this time.

Her hand was now resting on his cock, still covered by fabric but definitely hard. It was warm, and she remembered how he’d doled out one orgasm after another when she’d played nice. Considering how her core was burning and still left wanting, Stevie made the quick decision to just put up and shut up.

Sliding down until her lips rested on the deep line carved into his hips, she looked up at him through her eyelashes. “If I suck your dick, do you promise you’ll make me come?”

Her voice was light and teasing, but her fingers now hovered over the elastic waistband. She wouldn’t touch him until she made sure. Because he was cruel, sometimes.

Other times…

She needed to make sure.

Because Stevie Harrington was not stupid enough to screw Billy Hargrove without a good fucking reason. And she was going to exact her compensation in orgasms, and they’d better be fucking good if she was getting them from this jackass.

His eyes flashed as he answered, staring at her face, then flickering down to the shirt, still bunched up to her armpits to expose her breasts, but also still _on her. _Slowly, she pulled it up over her head, throwing it off somewhere to the side.

“Promise?”

He breathed in sharply. “Oh baby, you’re going to lose count of how many times I make you come after I’m done with you.”

Running his hand through her hair, his finger came to grip her chin lightly. “Just so long as you show me _exactly _how grateful you were to me last time before I fucked up.”

She thought back to the pool, and how she’d riled him up and left him hanging.

Karma was a bitch.

“If I remember right”, Billy breathed, letting go of her face to rest lightly over her neck. It was warm, and felt like he’d placed a loose, heavy chain around the base of it. “You said you were going to suck me off, _then_ let me do whatever I wanted to you, and _then _blow me again.”

Stevie whimpered, rubbing her thighs together desperately.

“If you do that, I’ll make you feel so good you won’t remember your own name, baby girl.”

_Oh, that sounds like exactly what I need right now. _

_Why does that sound so fucking good? _

She nodded, giving in to the dirty things she’d thought of with her fingers between her legs late at night or early in the morning, or actually, _quite often, lately_. It seemed like the less sleep she got, the more wound up she was lately. And she was just coming off a solid seventy-two hours straight of adrenaline-driven violence and the cutting edge of fear chasing her through the dark and the woods.

Stevie needed this.

So she yanked down Billy’s boxers and reached out with soft fingers to wrap around his dick. It was even more intimidating erect, but Stevie was no novice. She kissed the head and licked down the underside, laving her tongue around the base and pumping her hand over the rest of it once. Kissing his hip, she then nipped at it, and felt desire shoot through her as he grabbed a fistful of her hair and pushed her back to task, allowing her to guide herself to leaving his fingers tangled by the back of her neck.

She dropped her hands, taking him into her mouth in earnest this time, relaxing her throat and minding her teeth— _for now_— she managed to swallow him halfway down before she had to take him deep.

_Fucker had better appreciate the effort… and the technique. _

Stevie breathed through her nose deeply and slid down further, gagging slightly as he hit the back of her throat again. Her tongue caressed the underside as her hand worked to cover the inches she couldn’t, and she began to thrust him in and out.

Looking up, Billy groaned, his eyes fixed on her taking his cock deep in her throat, moving his hips slowly to accommodate her speed. She moaned at the look on his face, like he was just going to fucking _wreck _her, his dick still deep in her mouth.

He swore, biting his fist and looked down at her available hand. He tightened his grip on the hair in his fist.

“Touch yourself.”

Without hesitation, she reached down and pushed a finger inside of herself, tightening her lips and mouth around him as she did so. She was fucking dripping down her wrist, just at the thought of him taking her over and over…

She continued to work her mouth over him, tracing the contours of the head of his cock with the tip of her tongue. Turning her head sideways, she sucked hard and quick on the vein running along the bottom of his shaft. As he dripped precum, she pulled him back as deep as she could take him, satisfaction piercing through the pleasure at his eyes rolling back.

“Fuck, stop”, he choked out, tugging sharply at her hair. Disappointed, she let him go, resting her cheek on his thigh to try and catch her breath. At her expression, he laughed.

“I wanna come inside you first, baby.”

Stevie chuffed, but continued to play at her folds as she waited for him to fucking get on with it. She was so fucking _close_, goddamnit.

“Fucking Christ, baby, I don’t think I’ve ever had someone take my dick so well”, Billy panted, pulling her head away and dragging her back up to kiss her thoroughly, his tongue swiping deep into her mouth.

Then, he noticed her hand still hard at work between her legs. Tutting, he grabbed her wrist, stopping her as she rubbed her clit desperately. “That’s enough of that.”

“No, please, I’m so close”, Stevie begged, her hips rolling over his. Sighing, he shook his head and reached over her to grab a condom from his bedside table.

“So impatient.” He tore the package open and threw it aside, rolling the rubber down his shaft. Pushing her down, he got her under him, spread wide open and just waiting for him to just _fucking do it, please. _Billy looked her over, hungry but still not touching her.

She felt like she was going to combust if he kept her waiting much longer. Her core was a twitching, dripping mess and her nipples were so hard that every time her fingers brushed them, it sent a full-body shiver coursing through her. She was so tempted to just reach up and touch them, but knew that Billy would’ve had none of it.

That, and the sadistic fucker would probably just keep her wound up without release for even longer.

“You want this?”

His voice pulled her from her need, and she keened, chest thrust up and her pussy rubbing against his thigh. Squirming back and forth, she locked eyes with him.

“You want my dick inside you?”

She _writhed_, biting her lip to keep from morning audibly.

“Please. I _need _it”, she sobbed, having been held on the edge for so long that she thought she would come as soon as he pushed in, like some needy bitch.

To be fair, she assessed, she kind of was acting like one right now.

Too bad.

Billy put his hand on her chin, his thumb sliding between her lips. Stevie stares him in the eye as she closed her mouth around it and sucked. As if he could hold back no longer, he surged forward and thrust inside her, giving her no time to adjust. He clamped his hand over her mouth, catching a high-pitched groan and saving them from waking up the rest of the house.

Stevie’s hands slid up to wrap around his ribcage, her nails scratching up his back. She grabbed his ass and pulled him further inside her, and mouthed up and down his throat. He kept up a fast pace, slamming into her in jagged motions 

Then, she wound her fingers up in his hair and dragged his mouth down to hers, sucking on his bottom lip roughly and then pulling his tongue against her own. His pace stuttered slightly, thrown off-guard.

When he broke away, Billy’s mouth was red and smirking, and he pulled out, propping the backs of both her knees up on his shoulders. Leaning on the backs on her thighs, he pushed back inside her pussy, going so deep that his pubic bone kissed her mound. Stevie moaned against Billy’s hand, wriggling her hips in the limited way that she could.

He began to thrust quickly but stroking deep, catching on her G-spot and all of the sudden she was coming _oh god she was fucking coming. _

Clamping her teeth onto the meat of his thumb, Stevie tried her best to stay quiet as she had one of the strongest orgasms of her life, bucking this way and that while he just kept _hitting that spot_. It felt like an assault on her body in the best way possible. She was just having her orgasm extended as she clenched and shook around Billy Hargrove’s dick for what felt like ten fucking minutes but she knew deep down that it had to be something closer to ten, maybe fifteen seconds.

But _still. _It felt amazing, and as she slumped back into his twisted sheets, satisfied at last, Billy surprised her once again. He flipped them, so that she straddled him once more.

The angle pushed him entirely inside her, and rubbed at several good spots just so, and she could reach her clit from this angle, one index sliding into her wetness above her entrance, trying to—

Her hands was slapped away, and he scowled at her, his fingers sliding over to rub at her nub. It dragged her hips upwards in a snapping motion. She cried out against his hand once again, as he brought her to another knee-knocking orgasm.

Her toes curled behind his ears, and she buried her head into his chest. It drowned out any noise and sight, leaving her at the mercy of the white rush of light as her world broke apart and reformed around _Billy Hargrove’s dick. _

Instead of disgusting her like it should have, Stevie felt very turned on and slightly ashamed, but mostly exhilarated; free from thought and sensations other than just pleasure with an edge of that delicious pain.

“Fuck, baby, you come so easy”, Billy groaned. She grounded herself back in reality long enough to feel him pick her up and drop her on a mound of pillows, ass facing the ceiling. She squeaked, and he shushed her and readjusted his hand to keep them from making too much noise. Leaning over her back, she felt him enter her from behind.

His fingers flickered above her entrance where he slid in and out of her at a break-neck pace. He then moved up over the bundle of nerves, rubbing her slickness all over it. She could hear the slap of their skin, and smell the sweat forming between them but couldn’t bring herself to care, because this felt so fucking good and she could _see herself in his mirror from this position_.

It was a full-length rectangular mirror, propped up against the wall but on the ground. From the angle it reflected, Stevie was watching her swollen mouth covered by his palm, eyes glazed over and hair a fucking mess. But she could also see her tits bouncing as Billy fucked her from behind, his hand leaving her folds to slap her sharply across the ass.

Had she not had his hand in the way, she was sure she could have screamed loud enough to wake the entire street, let alone his parents.

“I think you like that, huh?”

His tone was crooning and his voice was sweet, so when she felt his palm crack against her cheek once more, a brief but ringing sting emanating through her rear. But Stevie was so fixated on the reflection showing where his dick was pushing into her pussy, because it looked so fucking hot that she was going to—

“I’m coming, I’m coming, fuck”, she whispered brokenly into his hand, falling apart as he slammed into her cervix. As he kept moving, she cried out and begged for him never to stop. She saw him make eye contact with himself in the mirror and smirk.

“No wonder you’re so turned on, baby.” Billy let go of her chin to squeeze at one of her breasts, and Stevie struggled to remember to be quiet. “Usually the girls I bring home are too busy to see the mirror, but _you_, you knew right away to look.”

Slumping beneath him as she finished peaking, she groaned out tiredly, her body overstimulated but still not willing to give up. She gave a weak swivel of her hips and was rewarded by a pair of hands reaching down to grab her ass as Billy kept pounding away. She felt like a mess of pleasure and just let herself melt into it, crying out so softly as he fucked her so hard that he was going the glue her hips to the mattress and never let them go again.

“Gonna come”, he growled, his hips smacking against hers loudly, over and over again until she felt him swell as he hit that perfect spot and… and…

_Oh god, not again. _

It was beginning to exhaust her, and she didn’t know how much longer she could keep this up.

She was in a haze, unable to will herself to twist away and just have him come on her ass instead of pushing her into another high, because _fuck_, she was starting to think she wasn’t going to be able to keep up with him.

Stevie clenched her teeth.

There was no way that she was tapping out from sex with Billy Hargrove.

That was a sign of weakness, and she _knew _she was better than him.

So she gave herself over to it and hated herself a little more for giving him the satisfaction of knowing that he’d brought her to climax almost a half-dozen times like this was one of the pornos she’d stolen from her cousin Toby’s room when she was fourteen.

She’d been so happy when her dad had just handed her his credit card and shooed her away when she’d asked for a TV for her room. That way, she didn’t risk Angie taping over it with re-runs of MASH.

But it had fascinated her, the way the woman in the film had completely surrendered to pleasure, shaking and shuddering and moaning without restraint as her co-star had fucked her over a balcony railing.

Stevie liked to think that it had a great influence on her later years.

She certainly wasn’t shy when it came to sex, and maybe that was why. 

But as she tried to distract herself with this line of thought to hold off on coming again, Billy reached up and grabbed onto her hair, pulling her head up so she was no longer buried into his pillow.

Groaning, he emptied himself into her as she shuddered and seized against him, barely able to move as another orgasm took her off guard. Stevie moaned pathetically, her pelvis shaking despite her muscles turning to mush.

She let herself fall limp, her skin sticky against his sheets.

She was going to need another shower.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one took so long!  
Christmas is a very busy time for my line of work, and I've been getting settled into a promotion, so things have been on the back burner for a bit.   
Hopefully you enjoyed, as more is to come soon.


	8. Floating in a Beam of Light with You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stevie is pulled out of the closet, kicking and screaming.   
Billy's just along for the ride.

**Friday November 9th, 1984**

Stevie wanted to be anywhere but here, now, in English, gritting her teeth not to wince as she tried her damn hardest to wrap her fingers around her pencil to write the stupid in-class essay on _The Tempest. _

She didn’t care that it exemplified the duality of man and beast, or how the careful depiction of an air spirit trapped by a magician paralleled the history of slavery in Europe circa the early sixteenth century. All she cared about was that it fucking hurt to hold anything, and had since the weekend before.

The scratching of lead against paper made her want to fidget, because if she kept herself busy enough then she wouldn’t have to think about how it sounded like the demo-dogs clawing away at the reinforced bus door. Her knee bounced over and over, keeping time with the Deep Purple song she was playing on repeat in her head. If she couldn’t hear it, she didn’t have to think about it.

If she focused on how she felt her skin splitting apart while she tried to move her hands to write in anything more than chicken scratch, then she wouldn’t even notice.

_Shakespeare’s choice to place Ariel in juxtaposition with Caliban creates a tension that is only resolved through—_

“Pencils down!”

_Fuck. _

She was still on the first sentence of her last body paragraph.

Swearing under her breath, Stevie raised her hand to beg Mrs. Wells for another fifteen minutes. The teacher sighed as she came by to collect papers.

“I don’t offer extensions on essays, Harrington. You know my policy”, she shook her head as she snatched up the half-finished rambling mess that Stevie had tried to cobble together between deep breaths.

When she made to argue, to explain that this wasn’t an extension, it was just another fifteen minutes, Wells’ lips pursed, and her brows raised.

“You’ve already gotten away with playing truant all week, and coming in without a doctor’s note means _no exceptions_.”

Deflated, Stevie let herself slump in her chair. This exam wasn’t worth a lot— if you didn’t consider a quarter of her final grade to be entirely consequential— but it was her first day back in school and she had wanted to start things off on the right foot.

That, and she needed to pass all of her core classes if she even stood a chance at getting into a college.

Her dad had been breathing down her neck about her applications during their bi-monthly family conference call the other day. Her mother had egged him on, explaining over and over again that without a degree, Stevie was nowhere near prepared for the harsh reality of the ‘real world’.

She’d even been willing to discuss school before that comment; she was ready, with a jumble of ideas for her application and essay in hand. But then her mother had yanked open the door she’d built between herself and the most recent life-and-death situation she’d escaped by the skin of her teeth. They thought that she was still comfortable in the sheltered life they’d left her in, but never stayed the night to hear her pacing holes through her floorboards.

Stevie had frozen up, hands shaking from where they braced her upright, clutching the lip of the dining room table. She forgot about mentioning her job interviews that weekend, or how she’d begun to seriously consider botany as something she might be decent enough at to find a career path in. She didn’t mention how she was still sore from fighting off monsters and boys who just didn’t know what to do with themselves but could make her knees tremble without a second thought.

Instead, she drifted into the cold black nothing of the tunnels under Hawkins until she could breathe right again.

When she tuned back in, the entire time they’d been speaking over each other, jumping on top of their words to try and convince her that this was what she was meant to do, this was the _only option_.

But she’d bitten her tongue and swallowed her anger, then told them that she’d be just _fine_.

She’d figure it out herself.

Like always.

Groaning, she let her head rest on her desk for a moment, relishing the cool surface beneath her pulsating eyebrow, before realizing that it was probably full of bacteria and about to infect her stitches.

So she got to her feet and made a beeline for the bathroom when the bell rang, gathering her books with as little care as possible, as if almost dropping her copy of the Norton Shakespeare would mean she could forget about her botched exam and that _bitch, Wells. _

Then, as she slammed open the door to the Ladies', she felt wind whip through her ponytail and sink past her blouse and into her bones. She shivered, wrapping her arms around herself and trying desperately to suss some warmth out through friction.

The smell of damp was too much as she noticed one of the sinks overflowing, and the fluorescent lights began to flicker. The overcast grey of the day was seeping through the open window, and when the lights went out, it clawed inside of the room, looming over the water slicking the tile and pushing the air whistling in.

“No.”

It came out strangled, but she knew it was her own protest and not anyone else's; she was alone.

Stevie couldn’t do this again.

So she stumbled out into the busy halls, shaking and wishing she hadn’t seen what she thought she just had, like every time she’d looked into the mirror in the past week hadn’t reflected her face stretched tight in ashy skin spattered in gore and her eyes sunk deep into her skull.

But she was already swept up in the currents beneath Hawkins, tumbling in the tunnels.

She blinked, and the hallway went empty and dark.

_It was cold. _

_She could see her breath fogging up in the air, even through the filter of the bandana tied over her mouth and nose. If you ignored that, and the occasional puddles of slime and the ever-growing roots of a beast clawing its way through the gaps between worlds, it reminded her a bit of winter. That time of year when the ground went cold and hard, but the snow hadn’t yet come knocking. Flakes of white drifted through, and it reminded of her of the fall she’d turned seven; trick-or-treating in a snowsuit and tiger face paint. Catalina had fussed about the cold, before finally relenting to her quivering lip and the tears that threatened to make a mess of her stripes. _

_It usually only began to snow near the middle of November. _

_But Stevie hated the winter. _

_The greenery she saw indoors always curled away, hiding in on itself as if its roots could somehow hold onto that summer heat. But the sun had left them behind; was always wrapped in a grey overcast, and the early dark creeping in before supper left her feeling delicate. _

_Vulnerable. _

_She shivered, one hand on the handle of her bat. The wood was cool and slick beneath the dish gloves she’d snapped on over her sleeves. She could feel air gusts whistle through the tunnels, slick against the yellow rubber but biting against her skin. _

_But it reeked of cold rot, and things that squirmed and twisted away from the light. Her nostrils flared and sweat began to bead, soaking the hairs on the back of her neck standing at attention. _

_It was here. _

_The stench of kerosene was soaked into the fabric wrapped bandit-style around her cheekbones, and was beginning to make her eyes water from under her goggles. _

_Stevie could taste death at the back of her throat, from when she and Dustin had been sprayed with spores by the mouth hanging low on the ceiling on the tunnel. She could feel it in her bones. _

_Maybe not tonight, or even tomorrow, but one day soon, it would take root and grow inside her, just like the fear she lived in. _

_This, she knew. _

_Stevie was going to die. _

A hand, hot and large enough to wrap around her bicep with ease, shot out and dragged her backwards. Another came to clamp around her mouth and she kicked out her legs, struggling and sinking her teeth down into the skin between the thumb and forefinger.

_That felt too familiar to be comfortable. _

She recognized the smell of smoke and too much Kouros by Yves St-Laurent, and felt the tickle of long, curly hair against the side of her neck.

_Fucking Billy Hargrove. _

She hadn’t spoken to him since the night they’d fucked.

Stevie had crept out in the early hours of the morning, stealing a pair of flip flops and some running shorts of Billy's after he fell asleep. He hadn’t insisted on the second blow job, but then again, he’d passed out almost immediately after falling back onto the bed. She’d taken advantage of that to regain the use of her legs and make a break for it.

She’d run across Max creeping through the front door as she’d made to leave. She'd given her a hard look, her lip curling slightly as she took in her messy hair, swollen lips and her step-brother's clothes. Max was clearly not very impressed.

Stevie couldn’t quite blame her, but also wasn’t able to muster up the energy to feel ashamed. She was just so _tired_. So she just shouldered past with a flat expression tacked on and something hollow in her chest.

Stevie had walked home and then emptied the contents of her fridge out onto the enormous island at the center of her kitchen, piled most of it onto a few plates and threw them all in the microwave. She hadn’t eaten a full meal since Friday, and her stomach had moved on from nauseatingly empty when Billy was still unconscious from the sedative. Chewing listlessly, she ate leftover fries from Benny’s, microwave pizza, spaghetti from last Monday, leftover shepherd's pie, and ate and ate until she thought she might be sick, and then, in brutal, heaving motions, she _was, into the sink—_

She was leaking tears again, almost without effort—at least compared to the painful, squeezing gagging she’d been doing moments before.

Breathing through her mouth, she stood straight, marched to the bathroom and only spent five minutes crying under the scalding water of the shower.

_An improvement. _

_That is, if you ignore the other five spent rocking back and forth in the fetal position…_

She refused to acknowledge the last part.

Maybe that was how she’d managed to get her ass out of the house and back in the shitty plastic chairs they called student seating.

As he pulled her into what seemed like a supply closet and closes the door, Billy Hargrove lit his Zippo and then using it to light a smoke.

“Hey, uh”, he paused, taking a drag of his cigarette. Stevie was about to protest, to mention that they were in a tiny, unventilated space with smoke and chemicals and how that was a bad idea, but then he levelled his stare at her as he exhaled, blowing out of his nostrils angrily.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, Harrington?”

][][][][][][][][][

**Monday November 5th, 1984**

He'd woken up alone, with the opposite side of the bed cold and the sun high in the sky.

It almost made him wonder if the night before was just some hallucination from whatever the fuck that crazy bitch had shot him up with. He still felt like he had cotton wool stuffed into his mouth and between his ears, and the room wouldn’t stop spinning. But then he’d smelled the remnants of sex on his chin and fingers, and saw her little lace panties half-hidden under his dresser across the room.

Billy smirked.

She was not getting those back.

But then again, he’d have to know her phone number or where she lived if he wanted to drop them back with her.

Of course, it hadn’t been like he’d stopped to ask her any of those things while he was trying to get her naked. And it wasn’t like she was keen on letting him know after the last disastrous ride home.

_Well, at least this time you didn’t call her a whore, so I guess that that’s an improvement. _

Slumping back down, scowling, he remembered exactly what had gone down between them.

He’d pissed himself at some point—_super sexy, Hargrove, way to get the girl_—after Maxine had gone full Texas Chainsaw Massacre on his favorite parts, he still had blood under his fingernails and bruises up and down his shins.

He tried very hard not to think about the gore staining the bat that had swung down to splinter the floorboards between his thighs. Or how it had belonged to Stevie, who was, if he remembered correctly from what she’d tried to pass off as an explanation, _batshit insane. _

_And he’d still gone and fucked her. _

Christ, he needed a cigarette.

And yeah, maybe his night had been fucking crazy. He’d expected to find Max with Sinclair, sure, and yeah, maybe Stevie at the town whackjob’s house at all hours of the night made a bit of sense, because apparently she was trying to get with Byers, and yet he couldn’t excuse her because—who the hell carried _sedatives_?

But he’d still ended up in bed with Stevie Harrington, so he figured he’d chalk this one up as a win.

_Wonder what Byers would have to say about that?_

He’d reveled in that feeling for a minute, imagining what shade of purple that he’d turn when Billy told him how beautifully Stevie came, how easily—

And then he’d seen the numbers, glaring red from his alarm radio across the room.

“_FUCK!”_

Scrambling over to the landline in the kitchen and thanking whatever the fuck up there that Neil and Susan were already out at work for the day, Billy made his best attempt at a passable parent voice. Which meant no swearing, and he couldn’t hit on the secretary to try and soften her up. No, he had to sound like Neil Hargrove and they couldn’t figure out that he was trying to get out of class or He would find out and his ass was going to be hamburger—

“Yes, I understand that this is only his second week attending your school, Mrs. Abbott, but unfortunately Billy's been ill since the early hours of this morning”, he said as smoothly as he could.

His throat was on fire, he needed water, _stat. _

“Yes, I do believe it may be contagious. Now that you mention it, my throat does feel a bit off, thank you.”

He paused, breathing a sigh of relief as she tittered on about honey in tea.

“I’ll be sure to let him know that he’s responsible for making up the work. Thank you.”

He winced.

_Responsible_?

He really did have a shit vocabulary. It reminded him too much of the speech Neil had given him the night before as he’d done his best to make him cough up blood. It made the hairs on the back of his neck stand stiff and he could feel the clamminess in his palms; the weakness in his knees.

_Weakness. _

** _Responsibility. _ **

Choking out a goodbye, Billy slammed the phone back into its cradle in the kitchen wall and let himself slump back against it as well. He slid down to the floor and tried to light a cigarette once, then twice before finally catching the tip.

Inhaling so hard he burned through almost a quarter of the smoke in one breath, he coughed violently, his mouth dry but his eyes watering.

_She knows. They all fucking know. _

Pounding the heel of his hand against his skull, he tried to beat away the ringing in his ears and the panic in his lungs at the thought of being pitied by even the administration of Hawkins High, let alone _Harrington, for whom he’d practically spelled it out last night when his head was spinning and his dick was hard. _

Sucking down the burning sensation like his life depended on it, Billy finished his smoke and was left empty of anything to distract his hands or his thoughts. He let his knees fall flat to the ground and let his fingers dangle uselessly between them.

He was just glad that he’d been out of view of their kitchen window while he’d panicked, because Mrs. Burstein from across the street had a nasty habit of peeking through her blinds at the Hargrove house, as well as a well-padded retirement fund to keep her comfortable.

Which meant that she took her joy in spreading gossip around the neighborhood like Max spread Jiff Peanut Butter on her toast every morning; thick and full of sweet shit nobody needed to start their day.

Maybe he’d call himself a hypocrite when he went fishing for tidbits on Stevie the next day when he buckled down and decided that the bruises on his face weren’t reason enough to keep skipping class, but for now, he just needed _out. _

It was a shame he couldn’t drive around Venice Beach like he’d used to, cruising around until he caught sight of one of his friends bumming around a corner with their board and offering to pick them up so they could go catch some waves.

And then he would fight against the ocean, straining for balance and control in the mess of water and movement until he got knocked from his feet when he got reckless and the air strained back into his lungs when he finally broke the surface.

Those were on his bad days, when Neil came home angry and Maxine wouldn’t stay put.

On the good days, he’d been so practiced at surfing that he didn’t even get his hair damp on his morning session before school. He’d laugh and shake the half-dozen drops that had caught the tips of his hair from the crash of the waves. And then he’d plant his board in the sand and sit smoking, watching the gulls fight over a hamburger someone had taken two bites of.

He’d been an early riser when they’d lived in LA. It was the only way to fit in time in the water before he had to hop on the school bus and ride there even though he _had _a ride, mostly because the parking was shit and Neil would pitch a fit if his car wasn’t pristine while it sat in his driveway.

And Billy didn’t have time to scrub and wax his Camaro every day.

He had calculus to do and bitches to fuck.

That was another thing he missed about California.

He’d had a reliable roster of girls he could rotate through as he’d needed, moving from one to the other so fast that none of them could ever expect anything more than a few orgasms and a wobbly walk for the next few days. Not that they’d cared, of course. They’d all been using him for just that.

Here in Hawkins, everyone and their mother cared when someone new got into his backseat and emerged without their underwear. Back home, no one would have even noticed, let alone looked twice.

It made getting his dick wet a fucking chore.

Because it seemed like in Indiana, all of the girls knew each other—at least well enough that he had to be careful not to fuck around with the ones who were friends—and though it didn’t do more than bump his reputation up to sex symbol, also meant he had to think twice about who he tried to charm into bed before he ended up with his car keyed.

And bringing them back to this tiny bungalow on the bad side of town, with khaki and orange wallpaper and yellow tile that made his eyes burn, it made it even worse.

Breathing out, Billy pulled himself to his feet.

He was going to lose his shit and break something if he had to sit inside this shithole any longer. Clenching and unclenching his fists, he stalked back over to his room and shimmied on some clothes, slid his feet into a pair of boots and grabbed his keys off the table in the entrance.

As he got to his car, he sighed in relief on realizing that his car was intact and without a scratch despite Harrington's aggressive abuse of his gear shift as he’d faded in and out of consciousness on the way home. She’d jammed his Foreigner tape in while she’d run through three stop signs getting him home.

Long, Long Way From Home blared through his speakers when he turned the ignition, and he lingered in the driveway for a moment longer.

Rock music made him think of speeding down the Santa Ana freeway with the windows down and a full tank of gas, a smoke in the corner of his mouth and another behind his ear. It reminded him of how salt got caught in his hair when he parked down by the beach and sat watching the tide come in, picking pieces of sea glass for Max to put in the jar behind her bed. He thought of how the sun would set and the city would come alive, with the lights blurring past him and a six-pack in the back seat and a group of friends piled in.

He missed the good days in Cali, and even the bad ones had had a silver lining to be found somewhere. Even on the nights where he slammed the door so hard the hole house shook and he knew that he was going to get his ass kicked when he wandered back through, there was the beach bonfires, or a forty waiting for him at the half-pipe.

Hawkins just never stood a chance.

The corner store here didn’t sell Mrs. Gonzalez's empanadas, and try as he might, Billy could never find any Oakland punk at David's Record Shop. The water here was already too cold to swim by the time he’d unpacked his swim shorts, and the closest skate park was in Indianapolis.

He was completely isolated from everything he’d ever found comfort in.

Neil was pushing the ultimate grounding experience.

Gripping the wheel with one hand, the other sliding behind the passenger seat as he looked to back out, he tried not to punch the window. He couldn’t afford to pay for a replacement.

Leaving California hadn’t even been _his fault. _

Scowling, he thought of Maxine and her pushy, nosy bitch attitude and how she’d landed them all in this mess.

The shit he’d done wouldn’t have even been a problem if she’d just kept her big mouth shut like she was taught to instead of going running to the cops. He’d had his shit handled.

Billy did not appreciate being treated like a dog that had crapped on the floor and couldn’t clean its own mess. He was a man, for fuck's sake. It was about damn time everyone under their roof started to treat him like one.

_You’re taking on the duties of the man of the house. And Susan can’t even look you in the eye after you take the hit for her fucking kid. Maxine thinks you can’t even **take **the hit in the first place. _

_Neil—_

_Neil is a piece of work, and even he doesn’t take you seriously. _

_You know you could break him if you wanted to. _

But that was always the problem.

As much as he kept telling himself that he hated his father, that he didn’t even want to be acknowledged as his son, Billy knew something deep down that kept him from swinging back.

He had nowhere else to go.

His mother had made sure of that.

As he pushed harder on the gas, he turned Main Street and considered dropping by the general store for a drink, some matches and another carton of Marlboros. The move to small town living hadn’t been kind to his patience, and the only time his breathing seemed steady was when he was smoking these days.

At least now he knew he wouldn’t have to cover long distance charges to try and call back to California, he thought bitterly as he grabbed a pair of sunglasses and added them to his small pile, along with a bottle of red. Shooting a glance at the checkout clerk, he decided he wouldn’t even need to flash his fake ID.

It was also lucky that the Hawkins Police Department's files didn’t span to cover charges laid against him out of state. If they’d seen the restraining order laid against him on his record, there was no way he’d have made it out of there with Stevie on Halloween.

The cashier began to ring up his purchases without a word, refusing to make eye contact and flinching away when she caught sight of the damage dealt to his face. The bruises had begun to turn blue-green already, were still shocking against the remnants of his tan. The woman working the till looked like she hadn’t slept in a week, and had eyes so wide that it was like someone was holding them open.

She chanced a glance up as she handed over his change, lips pressed into a grim line. He wanted to cover his face with his hands to hide from her look of _I see you, I understand_, hot callused skin catching against the scratches in his skin.

This is almost worse than the pity most people throw his way the way they tossed change into empty caps and used coffee cups up and down Skid Row. Because she knows and _still, still she is reminding him of what it is to suffer. _

So he mumbled a thanks and noted her name, on the tag on her left breast reading 'Joyce', and resolved never to come back to this shop.

Billy got back in his car and drove in circles, hoping to find somewhere that wouldn’t remind him of the shit storm of trouble he’d got himself into. But every inch of the main roads, all of the parks and even the fucking quarry at the edge of town hadn’t had what he was looking for.

Maybe he could drive around until something looked familiar in the nice part of town, maybe he’d catch sight of Harrington’s Beemer in a driveway somewhere and climb up to her window. There was no way that she’d gone to school after how well he’d turned her out last night.

_Don’t be desperate, you dumbass. She left you last night. You know what that means. _

Billy did know what that meant.

Not only had he fucked the town slut, but she had _baggage. _

And he _still wanted more. _

Of all the dumb, stupid, useless shit he needed right now—

Pulling over by a small wooded area off of a shoulder leading back from the north of town, Billy wrenched his keys out of the ignition and kicked open the door, already trying to break in to the wine but refusing to rummage around to try and find his Swiss army knife in the glove box.

Yanking the cork free and lighting another cigarette, he took off, tromping through the underbrush and getting the buttons in his jean jacket caught on some of the bare branches. They whipped at his legs, dull against the denim and the warmth in his stomach, pooling fast as he necked the bottle.

After he almost tripped over a root and realized that his car was so far off that it almost blended in to the grey overcast, he gave up and decided that leaning against the bumper was still a safer bet than whatever was out in the woods.

_That blood came from somewhere. And I’d sooner like to believe that it was a mountain lion, a bear, even a fucking deer than a person's. _

_Or maybe that’s just what you want to believe, genius. _

This was dumb.

Spitting, he turned and stomped back to the road. His boot almost got caught in a rabbit's den and snow slid through the top along the back of his ankle. It began to melt and soaked his sock unpleasantly.

He hated this fucking place.

His last memories of California rose like bile in the back of his throat; sour and sticking in his brain.

Billy remembered banging on his mom's door at two in the morning, and her boyfriend answering with a .38 aimed at his chest. He thought of how the police car lights looked on stucco siding, how his forehead felt pressed against the curb with a knee between his shoulder blades. He felt how Neil's anger shook his bedroom door off its hinges and swung him into the frame.

Billy remembered the clink of the gurney straps and the sound of Max screaming.

And then, Billy remembered leaving in the middle of the night.

Packing up a lifetime's worth of things and hopes and dreams into two cars with four seats, wanting to kick and scream and cry about how _this wasn’t fair, this wasn’t his fault and why did he have to suffer the consequences?_

But because he knew how that ended, he’d shut his mouth and sat stewing in the driver's seat as Susan tried to cram a picture frame in the trunk and burst into tears when it wouldn’t fit. He’d even kept quiet when Maxine had opened the door and plopped into the passenger side, arms crossed over her chest and a closed look on her face.

It had been the beginning of the end of their relationship.

They’d never been particularly close, but Billy had been the one to buy her first board from the shop off of San Pedro, and he’d been the one to drop her at the arcade when shit got too heated at home. He'd still been a dick, sure, but he’d been a halfway decent step-brother too.

Or at least, he liked to think.

But nowadays his head got too angry to cruise around in silence like they used to, broken by Max's attempts at singing along with Steppenwolf and Iron Maiden and his argument that _mushrooms are not a valid pizza topping. _They were both too stubborn to ever move past the rift that had rent them from California to Indiana. They didn’t watch cartoons on the Saturdays where he didn’t sleep in without squabbling for the remote, they didn’t spend hours on opposite ends of the same record shop browsing.

Instead, Billy was just so fucking mad all the goddamn time.

At the stupid people in this stupid town, at how half of the turn-offs were gravel, at how the smell of the air constantly reminded him of how the meat for his burger was being raised within spitting distance of his back porch.

About how in places like this, neighbors traded what they peeked at through half-closed curtains over tea. How everyone knew everything about everyone. How he couldn’t find his favorite brand of cigarettes so had to settle for the lesser evil.

If he was being honest, that might be a good chunk of it right there.

But nothing was fucking worse than how Stevie _fucking _Harrington had dug herself under his skin and made a home there.

He resented her.

The spoiled rich brat, best at everything that everyone cared about in small towns. He’d seen her shaking when coach Grant had given her shit. Sheltered and soft, he’d thought, if just for a moment.

Because what could Stevie Harrington have been through to convince him otherwise?

So he’d pitied her, and he’d given her space.

Even after that shit he’d heard about her and Creepy Byers, about how she’d ended up tasting his knuckles on the back of her teeth, with her fight with Wheeler over him outside of the pool before they vanished. He’d planted his feet and minded his business.

Until he’d gone looking for Maxine Sunday night and found her cowering behind Jonathan Byers' couch, with Stevie between him and the door. He’d been furious, so mad that it put the anger he usually dedicated only towards pop music and politics to shame.

Billy had done dumb shit. Said things he’d regretted.

In the harsh light of day, yeah, maybe he’d come on a little strong.

But _fuck_, if he hadn’t been a powder keg that night after squaring off with Neil, and if Stevie wasn’t the match.

And the Sinclair kid had been the explosion.

He hated himself a little more now. He knew it had been wrong.

But Billy also knew Max, and he knew when she got that look in her eye that that was _it. _She was a goner for him and his dumbass nerd face. Realizing as he’d watched them had made his heart pound loud in his ears, made the burning of his smoke turn his tongue numb while his hand shook, pulling it away from his mouth. Because he knew what happened next.

He wouldn’t let that happen again.

He couldn’t.

So instead he’d turned himself on that poor kid, terrified and confused and scared as he was, and then _she _had to get in the middle of it all.

It would be a cold day in Hell on the day where he admitted he didn’t mind being able to spend even just one day without her fucking around in his brain or pissing him off in person. She infuriated him and he couldn’t get her and her soft little mouth out of his head—

She’d been a _fantastic _lay.

That didn’t excuse the fucking batshit insane baggage she was toting around, though.

Or the bloody baseball bat with nails hammered into it that she also apparently kept on hand.

You know.

_Casually. _

That or the shit she was rambling about monsters and labs and the government. That in itself raised several red flags. But the admission of having bludgeoned something with that bat not only last night, but last year, too?

Well, he’d still fucked her, so…

Billy revised his opinion of Stevie Harrington.

She wasn’t soft, or sheltered.

No, she was having some kind of psychotic break, or had fried her brain with acid, or coke, or _something. _

Because she couldn’t be right.

][][][][][][][][

**Friday November 9th, 1984**

“What the fuck.”

Stevie trembled in the face of him, standing over her and towering past the top of her ponytail. He took another drag and looked at her, trying to prompt words to come out of her mouth.

“What do you want, Hargrove?”

She tried to ignore the day she’d spent in a drunken haze after they’d fucked, hovering between consciousness and delirium as she tried to drown her fears in ethanol and self-pity.

It had been pathetic, and it had taken her almost three days to crawl out of the hole she’d thrown herself into.

She could _never _let him know how vulnerable she’d made herself with him, in the dark and over the covers.

“Sunday night. You _know _you owe me an explanation. Because what in the actual fuck, Harrington?”

He was clearly pissed off, and was desperate if he’d resorted to this as a pathetic attempt to get her alone.

But that didn’t excuse how he was treating her, and she had no qualms in letting him know.

“What, are you sad that I didn’t stay and cuddle?” Stevie sneered, looking down her nose at him. “Or were you just upset because I wasn’t there, waiting and ready to service you when you woke up?”

Billy paused. He looked at her with an intensity she could almost feel vibrating through the marrow in her bones. She felt small beneath his hungry eyes. She could almost hear how he wanted to _eat her up. _

“You still owe me a blowjob.” His tone was nonchalant but his clenching fingers on his thigh said otherwise. She melted, just a little.

It was hard to forget what those fingers could do to her.

_He could bring you to your knees if he wanted to. _

The thought made her stomach clench.

“Maybe I do”, she murmured, her gaze softening for a moment, before her eyes went sharp and her stare grew hard. “Maybe I don’t.”

And then she reached up and plucked the cigarette from his mouth, ground it out on the doorframe and before he could protest, kissed him hard.

She needed a distraction from whatever this shit was.

Biting her bottom lip and sucking, Billy made her groan, and he reached around her to grab her ass with one hand, hitching her thigh up over his hip. She could feel him, hot and hard beneath her, and whined low in the back of her throat as his other hand tangled deep in her hair.

It felt so good, wrapped around his fist, tugging just enough to hold her to him. Stevie began to cant her hips against his to find relief. Cursing herself for not wearing a skirt, she clawed at his shoulders and ran her fingers down his ribs—

Billy flinched, and it was enough to feel the ice-cold dread set into her.

_Make better choices, Stevie. _

She pushed him away wordlessly, shaking her head. Fiddling with her pants to readjust them, she found her voice again.

“Not here.”

Groaning, Billy rubbed his eyes and took a few deep breaths. When he opened them, he seemed angrier than she would have expected after a good grope. “You never stop with this tease shit, do you?”

Stevie giggled nervously, and promptly hated herself for it.

She was better than this.

“And you never told me what really went down on Sunday”, he accused, crossing his arms defensively. “I woke up to you, bathing me, in my house at four in the morning, and I make you see fucking heaven God knows how many times and I _still can’t get a straight fucking answer?_”

Now, she was angry.

She’d bared herself to him, given him everything he’d asked for, and it _still _wasn’t enough?

That was it. The asshole could rot in a government cell for all she cared.

She smiled darkly, the lines in her face casting shadows under the single bulb hanging over them. Her eyes glittering, she tossed her head back and gave him an anemic smile.

“Oh, but I have”, she murmured, stepping closer, until their chests were brushing and she had to keep her face tilted to maintain eye contact. “It’s not my fault that you weren’t listening.”

He looked just as frustrated as he had been when he’d dragged her in here in the first place.

Suddenly, she felt the deceitful peace of floating in the dark, listening for the things that would flay your flesh and lick it clean but let it drip blood; let it be a warning to everything else that trusted in this feeling of submission.

“You want to know what happened that night?” Stevie said breathlessly, like she’d just finished her run after another sleepless night. “You’re _sure_ you want to know?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

His voice sounded resolute, but the tremble in his mouth told her otherwise.

Stevie squinted at him and saw the dark circles under his eyes, how bloodshot they were. She catalogued how his hair fell flatter than usual and the new bruises; three small smudges along his left jawline and one big, blooming and purple under his chin. She noted how the stale cloud of smoke that followed him had gotten ashier, and how his shirt was buttoned crooked.

“Oh, honey”, she cooed, drawing delicate fingers along the curve of his cheek, retreating her touch as he chased it.

“You know exactly what happened.”

He scoffed and shook his head, but Stevie laughed. She felt it rise from the bottom of her belly to claw its way back up to her diaphragm before sliding up her throat and finally through her lips. It reminded her of how a demogorgon screamed, and she saw Billy flinch.

“So, tell me then, have they started climbing into your dreams yet?”

She tried not to think of the nights spent pacing frantically; eyes wide and mouth clamped shut, tears streaming and breathing ragged. She was familiar with the sensation of free-fall in her dreams, even before. The hurtling sensation dropping through the back of her spine through dark void, with a silence so heavy that it blanketed her in it and kept the pounding of her heart from beating through her eardrums. It had once been something that jolted her awake in a cold sweat.

_But feed the mind with horrors, and it’ll be put to work. _

Now, she could imagine what it felt like for a demogorgon to eat through the meat of her calf.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” His voice and expression had gone flat. Hers remained smiling but static.

“It snowed on Tuesday.”

“What about it?” He snapped, avoiding her gaze and rubbing roughly along the line of his jaw. Scowling, he stopped and then squared his shoulders, trailing his eyes over the dip of her shirt and the line of her cleavage. “Are you about done with this crazy shit, Harrington, or do I just have to shut you up to get you to stop?”

She stayed quiet for a moment. Then, she saw what she was looking for.

_Proof that Billy Hargrove isn’t quite so oblivious as she’d thought. _

_Or maybe, more aware than she’d hoped. _

“Have you been out in the woods, Billy?”

Stevie's sing-song tone reminded her of the children's tune about a teddy bear picnic and ominous lessons hard-earned. She shivered, rubbing her arms up and down.

_He likes it cold. _

The thought rang through her, echoing in the empty corners of her mind that she’d spent the past few days bailing out in the flood of fear. She’d heard it, trembling from the grey lips of Will Byers, still small and fragile from the week spent in the Upside-Down. She felt it growing inside her like the spores that had spat on her face in the tunnels, forcing up water and bile from her cramping stomach just to get it out _get it out get it out of me—_

“I bet you have. And I know that you clearly don’t own a proper winter jacket, either”, she sniffed, plucking a twig from his hair.

“Did you see anything when you went out looking for monsters?” Stevie smiled, spreading her fingers and arms wide.

“Because I did.”

Billy's eyes shone in the light, wide and his mouth moving to open, to ask her to tell him more, because he wasn’t the kind of person to let sleeping dogs lie. This, she knew, and she’d counted on ever since she’d spilled the whole of her worst secrets in the early hours of Monday morning, curled to his chest and sobbing. She’d told herself he would think it too crazy to ever even consider it, but apparently, something in him had believed her enough to doubt what he knew.

She wanted him to know what she did, to feel the terror of being hunted by monsters and chased in her nightmares.

But mostly, she just wanted to be able to talk about it with someone who wasn’t Jon or Nance.

Stevie had made her peace with them, true, but it didn’t stop her from pausing before sitting at their table in the lunch room, fingers laced tight between them and heads bowed and whispering. They were a unit, now more than ever, and she was just hovering outside of their attention.

And they had fought the demogorgons, sure, and they'd all made them bleed. But it felt like her life was empty, now that she knew what laid behind the thin curtain between worlds. Where she’d lost her ability to focus on the mundane to find meaning, or even joy.

Nancy and Jonathan _relished _normalcy.

Stevie had tried to bury her head back in the sand, had even tried hanging out with Carol once before her mouth had gotten ahead of her and she’d bitched her out for joking that Barbara Holland had run away because she was in love with Nancy Wheeler and couldn’t take the rejection after she’d hooked up with Jonathan Byers.

But she was so, so very _aware _of how tiny and inconsequential she was in the grand scheme of things. She was nothing more than meat to monsters that tore their way between dimensions, and she had fought tooth and nail bat to get out alive.

And she’d been good at it, too.

Jonathan and Nancy had barely made it out by the skin of their teeth, even with a solid plan and armed with half of the local sporting goods' store hunting section.

They probably wouldn’t have seen the light of day if she hadn’t gone back and beaten the shit out of the thing trying to pick off Hawkins' youth one by one. That wasn’t to say that Nance didn’t have a spins of pure steel in the face of danger, or that Jon never hesitated when it mattered.

God knew that the scars on her face were a testament to that.

But they didn’t take to it like she had.

They weren’t any less capable, just more suited to sleuthing and amateur journalism than butchery.

It just meant that they didn’t feel the high of blood pooling under their feet, the stuff of nightmares left limping away with its tail between its legs. They didn’t feel the cold satisfaction of watching the beast that had terrorized their town _bleed_, even as thoughts of them hunting her crept into her mind when she was at her weakest.

Billy would.

So as she realized that, Stevie made a choice.

Good or bad be damned, she thought to herself as she stepped forwards and wrapped her arms around the back of Billy's neck, ready to whisper the truth into his ear.

Her lips brushed the corner of his jaw, and Stevie felt him reach over and wrap those big hands of his around the dip in her waist, pulling her flush against him. He was hard again, she could feel him pressed against her right thigh.

_Fucking pervert. _

But as she began to form words, began to unravel the tangled mess that had been the secret hidden in Hawkins for the past year, the door was wrenched open and the inside of the closet was flooded in light.

“God_damnit_”, she swore, squinting up at the janitor, flanked by the vice-principal.

Neither of them looked very impressed.

“I told you I saw the two of them run in here”, the janitor huffed, crossing his arms. “Noticed him pull her in after the late bell.”

Billy cursed, dropping his head down to hide his face in her ponytail, high on the back of her head. This was not a shining moment for either of them.

First the cops, now _this?_

The universe was clearly trying to tell her something, she thought faintly, still wrapped around Hargrove.

“Now, Miss Harrington, Mister Hargrove”, the vice-principal sneered, a yellow slip already in one hand and a pen ready in the other. “What do you have to say for yourselves?”

_Fuck. _

“And make it good. Because I’ll be calling both of your parents in to discuss your punishment for your inappropriate behavior.”

** _Fuck. _ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god, thank you, thank you, thank you for all of your support and patience!  
Everyone who's stuck through this with me has been so supportive, and I can't thank you all enough :)  
I'm finally in the clear from the flu, and since the busy season is over at work, I've been chomping at the bit to stretch my writing muscles again. Being able to breathe through both nostrils is highly underrated! I'm glad to be feeling human again.   
I've got a few ideas for how I want to look at the three months between the end of season 2, episode 9, and its epilogue at the Snow Ball. Family life with the Harringtons and Hargroves is going to be a bit of a central aspect to next chapter, and I'm hoping to work on the friendship between Dustin and Stevie to bring them to the level of enthusiasm that season three brings to the table.   
That, and of course, some steamy scenes between Billy and Stevie, as always ;)  
Hope you enjoyed, and I'll have some more for you all soon!


	9. Give Me your Mind, Baby, Give Me your Body

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Billy meets the Harringtons' housekeeper.

Billy had been in all kinds of trouble before; he was no stranger to being hauled up to the principal's office after throwing a chair out of a window, talking back to a teacher, skipping class.

But that had been in California, and a long time ago.

All right, _maybe_ six months.

He’d kept his nose clean and his head down, at least for the first few days he’d been in Hawkins. It hadn’t been like he’d exactly had the opportunity leading up to it.

So he knew exactly how it went from here on.

They'd haul up his academic record, talk some smack about him 'going nowhere in life and needing to re-evaluate his priorities', he’d say that he was _already _nowhere so going anywhere but here had to better than this shit, and then they’d suspend him for a few days and then Neil would smack the ever-loving crap out of him as soon as they were behind closed doors.

He wondered if Stevie's experience would be at all the same.

She was sat beside him, arms crossed tight to her body and a single foot jumping furiously, like she was trying to hold herself back from running out the door.

She’d seemed almost manic when they’d been talking—kept looking over her shoulder, flinching away from shadows and jumpy when he’d touched her. She’d fallen into that same, unrelenting ramble that she’d barely managed not to hyperventilate through in his room last weekend, and the change he saw made him want to drink a six-pack to calm the shaking in his hands.

But now she was silent, and he couldn’t drag a word out of her, no matter how much he tried to catch her eye with meaningful glances. Stevie just sat and stared at the wood grain of the principal's desk.

He felt like he was back in interrogation at a police station. He remembered the fluorescent lighting, the grey, stained linoleum and the scratched-up two-way glass. He knew the rules; shut up, sit down, and ask for your lawyer, please and thank you.

But they hadn’t broken any laws, here.

_Then why does it feel like you’re trying to get away with murder?_

The door opened, and a sour-looking Neil and a tight-lipped Susan were beckoned in, Neil's hand gripping his wife's bicep and leading her through the door and to her seat. She continued to fidget with the straps on her purse as she perched on the lip of the chair, jacket still on.

Neil shot him a look that promised pain, and then turned to face front.

Billy looked down, counting the broken tiles and the uneven layout of the floor. Maybe if he didn’t look back up, he wouldn’t have to think about whether Neil would break out his belt or his toolkit tonight.

He had the sneaking suspicion it would be the wrench, this time.

He was supposed to be laying low, keeping quiet, pretend he didn’t exist. But that wasn’t him.

Never had been, never would be.

Billy was the brightly lit fireworks display behind the counter at a gas station; flashy when it mattered, _definitely _a focal point and something meant to be shown off, because he was the _shit. _And fuck, did he ever _bang. _But he was also a **'CAUTION: DO NOT TOUCH' **sign in neon colors, locked away behind an inch of glass away from careless hands that couldn’t afford to fuck with him.

Something beautiful that burns bright, but burns all the same.

He was almost tired of singeing fingers.

It had begun to dig a pit in just chest, the day his mom started looking at him the way she stared into the sun and hoped she would go blind. Like watching him hurt too much to look, through squinted eyes and a grimace even as she basked in him. But she did it all the same, knowing that one day, she would no longer raise her face to look.

In those moments, he’d hoped and prayed that it didn’t mean that she looked at him and saw his father.

Now, in the years after the last time she’d brushed his hair away from his forehead, laughed at his gap-tooth and sent him back off into the surf like it would wash him clean, he knew better.

He styled his own hair now, with hands full of Aqua-Net and a comb that he kept in his back pocket. The gap between his front teeth had closed with braces over the summer separating middle school from freshman year in a stage that he felt was best left forgotten; limbs too long to reach for hers and enough zits to convince him to wash his face on a regular basis. When he still used to believe her when she promised that one day, someday, she’d come and take him away.

He stopped believing, and she stopped picking up the phone.

That was the last time she’d called him her son.

_Take the hint, asshole. _

The sound of heels clicking against the slick floors brought his attention back to the doorway, where a short, Hispanic woman in a smart blouse and slacks bustled through. Her hair was slicked back into a tight bun and her face bare, she scowled at Stevie, shaking a single finger in her direction with barely contained rage.

“You…”, the woman started, before clamming up when she realized that this likely wasn’t the right place to discipline—was Harrington her daughter?

It hadn’t occurred to him that backwater small-town living attracted anyone who didn’t sizzle in the tiniest bit of sun. Sure, he hadn’t really been leaving the house much, but every goddamn asshole he dealt with was just the same shade of white.

He was certain that that was why Neil had picked Hawkins.

No one to distract him from hating Billy.

The woman shook her head and inclined it to the principal, who slid forth a telephone. The woman muttered under her breath as she dialled one, then two phone numbers. Hitting the speaker button, she leaned back into the third available chair as the phone rang. Her arms were crossed tightly and her lips pressed in a flat, thin line.

“Hello? Is this Principal Herdley?”

A woman picked up first, her tone clipped and yet punctuated with a sigh as someone else got on the line. They landed on top of one another for a moment, her introduction ended by his conclusion.

“Quiet down, Sarah, I can’t hear the man”, a deeper voice cut in, snidely coughing as it tumbled out over the tinny speaker. He spoke through his nose in a pitch that conveyed _exactly _how much better than everyone else he thought he was.

“Well, maybe if you have the man a chance to speak up first, _John_, then maybe you wouldn’t have to jump down his throat to get an answer”, she shot back cuttingly. A string of hissed threats about _prenups _and _mediation _was exchanged before the words ‘divorce attorney’ made things escalate from hard to hear to just straight-up _ugly. _

Billy chanced a glance at Stevie. She was facing forward, expressionless and refusing to look away from the clock. She was also breathing heavily through her nose, and her gaze had sharpened to a glare, fixed on the minute hand.

Even Neil and Susan seemed confused by the apparently meeting-by-proxy with Harrington's folks. The pair had continued to bicker as the others were still getting acquainted with the idea of being part of a three-way phone conference, and showed no signs of letting up.

The only ones completely unaffected by the passive-aggressive shots being taken over a conference call were the woman who’d come to attend in their stead and—

“Mrs. Harrington”, Herdley cleared his throat awkwardly, nails bearing down into the wood of his desk. “I’m afraid that I must cut this short, as you are calling long distance, and the school does not have the budget to cover the fees.”

There was a pause, and Billy could hear the sound of fingers crushing cheap upholstery. A sound he was all too familiar with.

As he had been single-mindedly ignoring anything to do with Neil, Billy realized only far too late that the pot had boiled over, and that he was _not happy. _

_Fuck. _

“What I don’t understand is why we're getting dragged out here during _working hours _to sit around in a room with a kid so spoiled her parents don’t even find it necessary to make it in to show up!”

His voice barked through the office, and he began to grow restless as Billy finally looked up through his eyelashes, just looking through the corner of his eye so he could barely see grizzled hands with thick, heavy knuckles and an ugly class ring clenching the armrest to his right so hard that the taut fabric dimpled and strained.

_Fuck. _

Billy felt his spine fuse together inch by inch as he froze in his seat, mouth clamped shut and breathing heavy through his nostrils. Jammed deep in his pockets, his fingers were curled in on themselves and so tense that he thought they might snap.

He swallowed.

“And now she’s running up the phone bill with no care whose wallet she's bleeding dry”, Neil continued to rant, as he felt himself begin to sweat.

Maybe if he moved away carefully enough, slowly enough, subtly enough, he would dodge the clawing hand that would snap out—he _knew _it would—and dig so deep into the flesh of his shoulder that he had to skip swim team practice for the rest of the week. Maybe.

“I’ll pay for whatever the call ends up costing the school.”

It was the first time she’d spoken since they’d gotten caught, and it cut through the noise of everyone else and set them back to zero as they seemed to agree.

He could her eyes sharp and her mouth tight, as she shook her head. “But enough with the arguing. Let’s get to the point.”

The woman who had made the call nodded repeatedly and when the Harringtons seemed to pose no objection to their daughter's conditions and Neil appeared mollified, motioned for Herdley to carry on.

At least, for the moment. He nodded once and let his hand drop.

Billy breathed, slow and careful.

“As I was about to say, Mr. Hargrove and Ms. Harrington were found participating in inappropriate behavior in one of the janitorial closets during third period today”, the principal explained in an exasperated tone, playing with his cufflinks.

And Neil's hand was on the armrest to his right once more.

_Fuck. _

“And this does not help your case at all, Ms. Harrington”, he continued. He purses his lips as he picked up a sheet of paper to read. “Your truancy over the course of this past week has not gone unnoticed, and be certain, there will be action taken to hold you accountable.”

“_Excuse me?”_

There was a pause, and—

Was she _fucking laughing? _

Sarah Harrington's screeching cackle set him further on edge, and promised punishment and pain, sure and certain. That was a sound that delivered suffering.

He was reminded of their exchange in the closet, where Stevie had whispered about monsters and laughed in a way that he’d never heard before; that made his hair stand on end and his throat clench. He thought of the sound and how it was nothing like her mother's, even when they were both being cruel. But even then, they way the sound reached up under him and dragged him back down by his throat made his mouth go dry.

She had definitely gotten that from her.

“Oh, _honey_”, Sarah giggled. “That’s your _third strike.”_

There was a moment of quiet, as everyone tried to process what she was getting at, when Mr. Harrington decided to speak up.

“Oh, for fuck's sake, _Stephanie. _I'm in the middle of an important merger and I don’t have time for this shit”, he bit out, irritated and short on civil words. “Do I seriously have to come home to give you crap about acting out again? Especially after last year?”

“Now, John, as much as I’m looking forward to sharing the same house with you again, I think that you should be more polite about this and save family matters for when we're in private”, Sarah said dryly.

“But really, Stevie, skipping class? You know you need the grades now more than ever, and you still haven’t faxed over your college application. I was going to have my assistant go over it before you submit.”

Stevie kept her eyes front-facing, and didn’t say a word. The second hand ticked faster, and her stare followed that now instead.

“And do you really have to be sleeping around at school?” John added, drawing attention back over to the matter at hand. “Do you even stop to think about how that makes _me_ look—how it makes _our family_ look?”

He paused, for effect.

“It makes you look like a slut.”

She continued to stare as Billy shrank back into his seat.

He hated to say it, but Billy felt obligated.

He felt like he should speak up, clarify that it was his fault they had been there, and that Stevie hadn’t been acting like that at all. But he felt the weight of the room on his skin and knew that if he tried to say anything, he’d just be shot down by one of the Harringtons. They didn’t seem inclined to trust anyone sitting in the office, from what he could tell.

He'd say something in that sharp way that made people over the age of thirty tell him to shut up, sit down and learn some respect, for Christ's sake. And then they would, and he’d tell them to fuck right off and them it would all just go downhill from there.

He’d get extra time added to his punishment, or even _expelled_, like that one time sophomore year. And the worse it got, the worse he ended up hurting.

So it wasn’t his fault. Not really.

He still felt kind of like a piece of shit.

_Fuck. _

Wait.

Why the fuck did he care enough to feel like a piece of shit?

And over not defending the bitch he’d been playing cat and mouse with since he laid eyes on her in the school parking lot?

Even though it turned out the bitch had wicked fucking claws and enough baggage to make an airport terminal?

_Fuck. _

“Now, Mr. Harrington”, Herdley cut in hurriedly. “They were not engaged in… sexual relations, although they were very wrapped up in each other when we found them. Our school does not permit that sort of behavior.”

“Doesn’t mean she wasn’t doing it”, her father grumbled over the line as he seemed to cover his phone and say something to a person near him that they couldn’t see.

“John!”

Sarah screeched, cutting him off. The room fell silent, his harsh breathing the only thing he could hear.

“We do not air our dirty laundry in public”, she scolded with a sniff.

Stevie's hands had migrated down to her thighs and had begun to scrape against her jeans. It was a quiet sound that crept up into his ears, as he’d almost come to expect it whenever he was around her. A nervous tic, maybe, or possibly a bad habit.

Why was he picking up on this shit again?

Herdley cleared his throat and moved along. “Miss Harrington will be facing a suspension of a week, and an in-school suspension of three days. She will be barred from participating in extracurriculars for a month, and will be on probation until the end of the semester.”

Stevie was now instead picking at her hands, staring at the scabs stretching across finger creases, along the backs of her knuckles and the heel of her palm. Some of them had begun to ooze blood, dark and slow.

“Miss Harrington, are we agreed that you will keep your nose to the grindstone and avoid skipping class and acting inappropriately on school property?”

She said nothing.

“Do you find this to be a suitable punishment, or would you prefer that I add more days on to your suspension, Harrington?”

She exhaled slowly.

“_Answer me, Harrington.”_

In the quietest voice he had ever heard her use, even in the middle of the night when trying her best not to wake anyone in his house up, she finally spoke up.

“Yes, Principal Herdley. That sounds like a suitable punishment.”

Billy exhaled, his lungs aching as he’d been holding his breath until she opened her mouth. He hadn’t known what would come out, not after the things her father had said. He remembered how she’d cut him with words and frozen him out after he asked if she’d blown the chief of police, and that hadn’t even been said with bad intentions—

Okay, okay, he’d been being kind of a dick.

But what else was he supposed to do when _Stevie Harrington_, Queen of Hawkins High, star of the swim team and little miss Richie Rich got herself off without even paying bail? She got everything handed to her on a sliver fucking platter, and she had been being_ kind of a bitch_.

But still, he’d been a dick.

Even so, it wasn’t nearly as bad as her _father _saying it to her.

At a disciplinary hearing, no less, and in front of her principal and his folks, and him.

And whoever the fuck the lady who’d dialled the phone was.

“Well, if that’s resolved then, I’m going to have to cut this short”, Sarah chimed in, voice once more smooth and sweet as honey. “I have a dinner with the Dean tonight, and those Stanford boys always get so prissy about punctuality.”

_Are you fucking **kidding me?**_

_The fucking nerve of this bitch, I swear to fucking Christ…_

Billy ground his teeth and his breath blew out of his nose in an exasperated huff.

And he’d thought that _Stevie _had been entitled?

He hated himself for admitting it, but in comparison, it was clear that she could have turned out ten times worse than she already was, and that was _really _saying something. Her mother was somehow more of a shallow cunt than she was.

He couldn’t fucking believe it.

And from what he could see from Neil and Susan, they couldn’t either.

The only ones who seemed unsurprised were Stevie and the woman who’d come to stand in for her parents. They remained quiet, but with shoulders tense. While the woman sat so straight he was sure he could hold up a graphing ruler behind her to measure a straight angle, Harrington had slumped down in her seat, still worrying at her fingers.

“We’ll be calling later, Stephanie”, her father cut in. “I have another meeting that I was supposed to be in five minutes ago, but don’t think you’ll be getting out of this one.”

And then he hung up, and her mother followed suit.

Principal Herdley sat there, almost like he couldn’t quite believe what had just happened.

“Stevie”, started the woman with the severe bun, her eyes hard and her mouth tight at the corners. “You need to explain yourself, and _now.”_

“I don’t have to do anything at all.”

Now, she seemed confrontational, even as she continued to stare at the time. Her hands were immobile in her lap, and she sat straight, facing the woman speaking to her, who did not like this one bit.

Leaning forward, the woman let her eyes, liquid but dark—so, so very dark—wander over her. She assessed her response, and then, like she could smell blood in the water, struck quickly.

“¿Quieres terminar como Javi?” the woman bit out, staring hard at Stevie. “¿Quieres deceptionar a todos en tu vida, eh?”

“¡Estás desperdiciando todo lo que tus padres te han dado en un perdedor! ¡Estás desperdiciando todo lo que _te he dado_ en un perdedor!”

“¡Te he tratado como a mi propia hija!”

Stevie looked over at her, breaking her gaze away from the clock, where it had come to rest. She looked actively hurt and upset for the first time since they’d been frog-marched in by the janitor and the principal almost half an hour ago. Her lip began to quiver as the woman kept increasing her volume, until she was practically shouting.

“¡Eres _mejor_ que esto! ¡No actúes como la novia puta de mi patético hijo!”

Billy had grown up in California, and knew about enough Spanish to order a beer, ask for the bathroom and to convince pretty girls to try and tutor him to learn more long enough to get them in the back of his car and their panties off.

He wasn’t fluent by any means, but he knew what the word that had jumped out and slapped him across the face meant.

_‘It makes you look like a slut.’_

“Angie”, Stevie started, making Billy practically jump out of his skin in surprise. “I really would rather not hear this now.”

Her words had a new edge that had been lost in the exchange with her parents. She seemed almost present again, ready to fight.

“No!”

The woman began to shout, the volume ramping up as her Spanish got faster and faster and he struggled to pick out anything he could understand.

“¡Estás tomando _todas_ las decisiones equivocadas! ¡Estás tirando tu futuro, niña mimada!”

“¡No vas a _ninguna parte muy rapido_!”

“**_¡Suficiente!_**”

Stevie Harrington had jumped to her feet and was facing the woman who’d called her parents to the meeting. She bore down on her like she’d done to him in the closet, full of righteous fury and fresh out of patience. Billy had almost forgotten, in the moments where she’d made herself small and hard to see. Stevie was someone who commanded your attention and demanded your respect.

Now, whether or not she would get it was another story entirely.

“¿Lo que the da el derecho? ¡_Tu no eres mi madre_!”

The real surprise was that Stevie spoke Spanish, and _fluently _enough to trust herself speaking it in an argument. It was hard enough to string together words when tensions ran high, and Billy could barely justify speaking _English_, sometimes. He was _maybe_ a little impressed that she could speak another language, even if it was with a definite accent.

It didn’t make her any less of a bitch though.

“Claro”, the woman, Angie, snapped back. “Pero si esa mujer estuviera cerca para criarte en primer lugar, no tendría que tratarte como una niña.”

With a sniff, the woman crossed her legs and looked away to stare at the clock. She had dismissed her and was going to try waiting out the rest of the meeting.

But Stevie wasn’t done. Instead, her face had fallen from anger to cold fury, and had become smooth as stone as she delivered what could only be a threat.

God only knew he’d heard her make them to him enough times.

“Angie, no me trates como una niña. _Yo firmo su cheque de pago_.”

_The_ words rang through the room, and Angie seemed taken aback for a moment. She raised a hand to clutch at her chest for just a second, before letting it fall limply back to her lap. She smiled sadly, and with bitterness as she opened her mouth next.

“Well, I guess you’ve proven your point, Stephanie. You really _are _their daughter.”

Collecting her jacket, Angie stalked out of the room, slamming the door behind herself.

“What”, Neil started, his face getting redder and redder as he breathed in and out. “In the _hell _was that _fucking bullshit?_”

_Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck—_

His heart was back to pounding in his throat and he didn’t know if he could swallow anymore with it there but _why, oh god why had he forgotten about Neil again?_ There was no way he’d let this blow over without taking it out on him, and then every time for the next week anything went wrong, he knew, he just fucking _knew_ that Neil would blame it on Stevie Harrington and then turn around and take it out on Billy—

“I apologize for my housekeeper’s behavior, as well as my parents’”, Stevie announced, her eye shuttered and her lips pressed flat. “I’m sorry that they’ve disrupted a disciplinary hearing that I was the one to cause, and that because of that, everyone’s time has been wasted.”

“Damn right you should be”, Neil grumbled, still wound up but staying in his seat.

The principal steepled his fingers and looked to Stevie, then to him.

“Now, as the matter of Miss Harrington’s punishment has been dealt with, I’m going to assign Mister Hargrove two weeks’ detention.”

“I trust that you will see to it yourselves that he will be properly disciplined at home to prevent this from being an issue ever again, and because of that, I am willing to waive any suspension days Mister Hargrove would have usually received for his part in today’s… adventures”, Herdley mused, as Billy felt the final nails in his coffin hammered down.

In fact, the creeping chill making its way up his back, pausing below his shoulder blades made him feel like someone had just stepped over his grave.

Or at least, they would be by the time Neil was done with his after this.

_Fuck._

“Oh, don’t worry, Principal Herdley”, Neil growled as he rounded on him. “I’ll make sure he never does anything like this ever again. Rest assured, I’ll tan his hide until the lesson sinks in.”

He’d begun to wrap his arms around his middle, because Neil always went for his chest first. He liked to knock the air from his lungs and watch him gasp in confusion as he couldn’t see past the dots dancing in his vision long enough to duck. He knew that if he curled in on himself, Neil would get angrier, call him weak, call him a pussy, a faggot, a cocksucker—every name in the book while he did the best to kick his ribs in. But he also knew that if he covered his torso, he’d be able to breathe right the next day, and sit straight without straining his back.

Susan’s hand, hovering over her purse, flinched at his words and her shoulders drew up toward her ears as she took in what he was promising. She knew what was in store, because she was the one to right crooked frames, sweep up broken glass and throw away scraps of wood and metal after Neil threw them at him from across the living room.

“The boy won’t even be able to lift a finger against you by the time I’m done with him”, he continued, oblivious to the mounting tension in his wife and son. Even Herdley, who was exhausted and who’d clearly been having a more challenging day than usual, was picking up on the fear bleeding out of them, and was beginning to look mildly concerned.

“In fact, I personally guarantee that he won’t be _anyone’s _problem ever again”, Neil added, his eyes glittering under the fluorescent lights. His upper lip twitched like he was going to smile, but Billy knew better, even as his blood rushed through his veins so fast that he could hear it roaring in his ears, almost drowning out the whimper from Susan and the—was Stevie _puking?_

The sounds of her retching broke him from the haze of fear and alerted him to Herdley’s mad dash for his wastebasket, just in time as Stevie doubled over and gave horrible, wrenching gags, spitting out only water and bile into the plastic bag lining the bin. She shivered, pale and weak as the dry-heaving abated.

Taking a deep breath and wiping her mouth clean with a delicate hand, she raised her eyes to meet the rest of the room’s, before coughing and turning a bright red that almost washed away how pale she’d gotten after being sick.

“Harrington! What is the meaning of this?”

The principal seemed both disgusted and shocked, and at a loss for an explanation, clearly.

Stevie raised innocent eyes to his and shrugged, before looking down at her hands.

“Well, if anyone had asked why I wasn’t in school this week…”

Herdley groaned and buried his face in his hands.

][][][][][][][][][][][][][

_Thump. Thump. Thumpthumpthump. _

Stevie wrenched her head back, sweat flying over her head, clinging to the hair escaping her bun and streaming down her face as she panted and minded her footwork.

Rearing back her shoulders, she felt the strain bunch, tighten and then let them go fluid and loose as she pulled her bat up and out of the Jeep tire she was aiming at. As she swung downward onto the rubber, she felt the impact reverberate through her arms, relaxed and smooth as they were. The first few times she’d swung, she’d left everything sturdy and solid as she bore down, and had suffered through limp, buzzing limbs afterwards as a reward.

Now, she knew better.

She tensed as she reached up, and loosed as she trained down, the nails sinking into the surface as she did. Remembering to steel her core as she disengaged, she heard the beating of her heart alongside the wrench if removing sharp edges from where they’d sunk in.

Her hands had gone from soft and lotioned every night to hard and callused, bleeding and blistering beneath the smooth wood as she kept at it, night after night that she could chase the sheep jumping over pasture as she’d been taught to do by Catalina in her youth after the bedtime stories failed and warm milk refused to put her to bed. Her skin now caught on sweaters and blouses when she ran it over the soft material to touch, her touch gentle but her hands rough and tumble.

In the background, the sounds of Queen's 'Tear It Up' blared loudly. It almost covered the sound of her breathing, of her heartbeat as it pounded in her throat. It covered the sound of the phone, ringing and ringing and never stopping but she_ wouldn’t _pick up, not to be steamrolled over again until she had to scrape what was left of herself up after her parents were done with her.

Stevie swung again, and again, until she felt like the bat could fly free of her fingers, shaking and weak as they’d become as she’d slammed it home over and over, until ‘The Works’ had looped around and was playing again.

Wrenching it free one last time, dropping one foot down for leverage, she yanked up once, twice and freed the nails from the shredded pile of rubber. She’d taken to buying them from the scrapyard past the north border of the town, haggling with the old man who ran the lot for a better price. She was going to have to make another trip up soon, before her father threatened to take back the Beemer and she was left with a semi-reliable ’74 Chrysler Imperial; expensive on gas and impossible to parallel park.

She turned off her boombox and popped the cassette out, placing it back in its box and pocketing it. Sighing, she wiped the worst of the sweat out of her eyes and turned to head upstairs.

Humming the tune to 'Hammer to Fall', Stevie made her way to her room on the second floor, swinging by the kitchen for a glass of water first. Chugging it back, she propped her bat by her doorframe of her bedroom. Sniffing, she wrinkled her nose and put down the empty glass. She definitely needed a shower.

Downstairs, the phone rang, only mildly muffled by her door.

_Tink. _

She frowned. Had she left any jewelry on before going to the basement to beat the shit out of junked tires? She hadn’t brushed past any glass apart from the one she’d left on her bedside table.

_Tink tink. _

It was coming from her window.

Immediately, she had her bat in hand and her hackles raised, ready to beat the ever-loving crap out of anything dumb enough to come knocking on her window. It was slow and inconsistent, but it wasn’t trees blowing in the wind or just a bit or rain. It was too intentional.

She crept toward the window, one hand’s fingers loosening from the taped grip but the other staying firm. She held her breath as she reached out with tremulous fingertips to part her curtains enough to see—

Her heart pounded again, as easily and as naturally as if this was just interval training instead of an ambush after her workout.

_At least this time you’re warmed up, _she thought to herself, wincing as she did. She’d barely been able to climb out of Billy’s bed to get home on Monday, her muscles were so tense and sore.

It had been a struggle, but she’d made it.

How in the world would she have suffered the indignity of waking up, _unwanted_, in his bed?

Stevie searched her front yard and saw him, swaying on the spot and with his car missing. He looked to have a fat lip, and his nose was leaking blood down his chin, the porch light making the red stand out against his washed-out skin.

_Speak of the devil, and he shall make himself known. _

Fucking Billy Hargrove was standing in her garden, throwing rocks at her window.

_For fuck's sake, why can I not escape this asshole?_

Swearing under her breath, she flipped the latch open and slid up the frame to stick her head out and look at him.

When she did, she saw that he still wasn’t wearing a real winter jacket. He looked like he was freezing.

“Finally, Harrington, I've been at it for like half an hour”, he shouted up at her. He took a swig of whatever was in the brown bag he had in one hand and winced. Spitting red, he reared back and laughed up at her, eyes glassy and unfocused.

Rolling her eyes, she shut the window and made her way downstairs to go let him in.

“What in the fuck were you up to?” he immediately seemed to sober up, at least enough to note her lycra bodysuit and legwarmers combo paired with her lucky bat.

She flushed, leaning it against the frame of the front door as she closed and locked it behind him.

“Practice. What are you doing here? How did you know where I live? How did _find my room_?”

She shot one question after another at him, trying to knock him back into that swaying, unsteady creep throwing rocks at her window at all hours of the night.

“I wanted to finish our conversation from the other day, and”, he swallowed, looking down and wiping away the blood from his face as he caught his reflection in a mirror in the entry. “Because my-my dad said he’d better not see my ass until Monday, and that it had better have shaped up. Tommy said he’d be able to let me crash tomorrow night, but that his aunt is in town until then and his mom is on the warpath.”

It looked like it had taken everything out of him to ask her for help, or even mention his father. He wouldn’t meet her eyes. Stevie narrowed hers.

Would he hold it against her again, or go looking for answers she couldn’t give like he had been when he pulled her into the janitor’s closet and into this whole fucking mess?

“Again”, she said coolly, “what are you doing here?”

He looked uncomfortable and made to take another drink from the container in his brown paper bag, but Stevie snatched it away. He tried to protest, but she shook her head and looked inside.

Southern Comfort.

Holding it up, she took a deep swallow and winced at the sweet, honey tones and the ethanol fumes rising up through her sinuses. “I’ll be taking that as a host gift, thanks.”

He looked up at her again, and in the most vulnerable voice she’d heard him use since he talked about his family that night, that night where she'd given in and it had been _so good so fucking good, and she wanted that again because why shouldn’t she have it? Didn’t she deserve it, now after everything—_

But Stevie was making better choices and thinking over her decisions. She wouldn’t give in so easy, this time.

As she'd been lost in her memories of their bodies moving together, building pleasure, she'd almost missed Billy answer.

“Does that mean I can stay?”

_Fuck_. Better choices, Stevie.

But also, be a better _person_, Stevie, she was just as quick to reply. And Billy needed somewhere to go, and she had a surplus of beds.

His lip seemed to have closed over, but he still had blood under his chin. He looked at her almost defiantly, now, daring her to say something, to ask about his face, or his father. Stevie decided that sometimes, even when you want to, you shouldn’t pry about some things.

“You can stay in one of the guest rooms. Or my parents' room. I don’t really care, actually”, she finally replied in a bored voice. “It’s a big house. You have your pick of the litter.”

He grinned toothily at her, his hackles down once more, but said nothing as he nodded once.

“Follow me”, she mumbled, turning on her heel and heading up the stairs. As they got to the top landing, the phones went off again, differing rings dissonant throughout the house. Stevie kept her eyes forward and went straight for the bathroom. Billy trailed after her lazily, frowning once they got inside.

“Why are we in here?” he questioned, brow furrowed. He glanced around the white, immaculate surfaces gleaming under bright lights.

“You’ve still got blood on your face”, she replied bluntly, watching as his jaw worked and he clenched his hands. She kept her face blank as he stared her down, scowling. Instead of bending to the pressure, she busied herself with wetting a washcloth with warm water.

As she held it up to his face and went to swipe under his chin, he flinched back. Gritting her teeth, she took a step forwards until she was standing between his legs. Reaching up slowly, she wiped away the dried blood in short, delicate and light-handed movements, making a pass over his face to get the last of the flaking bits he’d missed.

In the background, the phone rang again.

“Are you planning on answering that, Harrington?”

She took a deep breath and shook her head. Her thigh itched. She scratched at it, trying to banish thoughts of what awaited her on the other end of the line.

“No.”

He looked at her, incredulous for a few moments. “Jesus, Harrington, you’re not going to elaborate?”

“Do you want to elaborate on whose fist ran into your face, or should I?” she shot back, hissing. Billy growled deep in the back of his throat and reared back.

_Goddamnit, Stevie, do you have to push away everyone in your life?_

_First Nance, then Angie, and now even Billy fucking Harrington. _

“Fuck—I’m sorry, I didn’t—fuck”, she rushed out, putting her palms up in surrender. He looked two seconds from exploding, but gave a nod for her to continue.

“It’s my parents calling to give me more shit”, she choked out, looking down. “Angie probably called to tell them what I said. So, I guess I deserve it, too. I’m just delaying the inevitable.”

“From what I understood, she called you a whore”, Billy said, after a moment of silence. She looked up again, and his face was unreadable.

“Right”, she muttered. “You’re from California, I guess it makes sense you’d speak some Spanish. But you clearly didn’t understand what I said to her, and how I humiliated her.”

“Then tell me, and I’ll forget what you just said about my face”, he mumbled, his gaze softening just a little.

Well, she’d already done some horrible shit to him, and he’d done just as bad to her. If anyone was likely to overlook her being an absolute ass, it was the king douche himself.

“I… she was telling me that I was fucking up my life, begging me not to end up like her son, who ended up getting this girl pregnant in high school and dropped out to shack up with her and pay rent after his mom threw him out. And I love Angie, but she isn’t my mother, and doesn’t get to tell me how to live my life.”

“So, she still called you a whore”, Billy interjected, his voice hot. He was frowning again.

“Yeah”, Stevie admitted, and bit her lip nervously. “But when she told me I was throwing my life away, she called you a loser and said I would end up nowhere, and that I was stupid for what I’d done.”

“Still not getting how you’re in the wrong here.”

She sighed.

“I snapped, and I told her I wasn’t her daughter, and that I never asked her to treat me like I was. She said something about how if my mom had been around more, that she wouldn’t have to act like she was my mother. And then, because I’m a huge bitch, I reminded her that I’m the one paying her, and that she should remember that I’m in charge.”

She winced as the words came out, and watched Billy take it all in with a thoughtful expression, still frowning.

“Kind of an asshole move, Harrington”, he let out as he studied her face.

“Could you please stop calling me that?” she mumbled, uncomfortably shifting as she could feel her cheeks heat. She didn’t like that him calling her that, and she didn’t like that she didn’t like that even more, but couldn’t help but voice her complaint. “You’ve seen me naked, for fuck’s sake. That, and it makes me sound like even more of an asshole.”

“Fair enough”, he smirked, “_Stevie._”

Her core throbbed, as his voice reached out to her ears and made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. It sounded so much better.

“But from where I’m standing, you’re still not in the wrong.”

Her breath stuttered, and her brain raced. What did it mean to be absolved by someone who was practically amoral? Was it really something she could trust or believe?

“She made assumptions and then escalated things until you were backed into a corner, and you had no choice but to hit back”, he argued, placing his hands on the tops of her arms gently.

“I was still a dick about it”, she whispered. “Angie really does take care of me.”

“Hey”, Billy said softly, rubbing his warm, large hands up and down her arms, trying to comfort her. It struck her as odd, until she remembered that Sunday, when he’d held her against his chest and promised her that it would all be okay.

Something fluttered in her chest, and Stevie buried it deep, like she’d done with next year’s batch of tulip and daffodils in the fall, placing the bulbs with care and patting the soil flat with her hands, waiting until later to scrub the dirt from under her fingernails.

“It still doesn’t make what she said okay. You deserve at least a chance to defend yourself. You should never have that taken away from you.”

Stevie smiled wanly.

“Thanks.”

Their eyes met again, and silence spanned between them as she felt a tension building. He leaned closer to her, standing close enough that she could feel the heat of his larger frame over her. It felt upsettingly familiar, but she felt herself relax into it before she could remember to be on guard.

His eyes landed on her lips, and she felt his knee slot itself between hers gently, slowly, so she could easily knock it away if it was unwelcome. She inhaled, and felt the smells of smoke, liquor and cologne waft up into her nose. It was dizzying and overwhelming, but it made her want to rub up against him and make bad choices.

Clearing her throat, Stevie spoke up once more. “Maybe I should finish showing you around.”

“You remember how you said I could pick the room I stay in tonight?” Billy’s voice was quiet, but his eyes were fixated, burning and blue on hers. She nodded, her tongue thick in her mouth and unable to form words.

“Can I stay in yours?”

His voice came quickly, words spilling into each other as he hurried up to get them out.

His eyes bored into hers, and he leaned over, pupils pitch black and blown wide, breath sweet with honey and liquor from the bottle he’d carried there. Stevie bit her lip to keep it from trembling, and barely could keep herself from pushing forward the inch and a half separating them before she spoke.

“Yes.”

She pulled him down the hall before kicking open her room door and dragging him inside, much like how he’d done to her earlier that day.

Slamming her up against the wall, Billy growled low in his throat, his cheek rubbing up against hers as he nuzzled her neck and rutted up against her. She could feel his hardness grind up into the heat dripping from between her thighs, and it made her want to touch him.

Her fingers scrambling down, she wrenched the hem of his t-shirt up, pulling aside his leather jacket in the process. She almost scoffed as the pads of her fingers trailed along, feeling the suede-soft material glide past.

_How typical. A leather jacket_, Stevie thought, all as she worked to rid him of it entirely. She wanted to feel the warmth and satin of his skin, smooth and coarse where hair grew; a study in textures for her to explore with her eyes screwed shut and her head thrown back.

Fumbling past his belt, her short fingernails made quick work of his belt, the fastener clinking but moving aside all the same, parting to her touch. She reached inside and found him ready, and the discovery left her panting in short moans while his fingers reached down to caress her, toying with her clit briefly before sliding inside of her. She bucked her hips as she got used to the feeling of bring full, _so, so full, two—three fingers full, now._

Pumping him once, twice, Stevie wrenched open her nightstand drawer and after a moment of rummaging with her brow furrowed, returned victorious with a condom in hand. Silently, she thanked Trojan for manufacturing such cheap, easily accessible rubbers.

Billy was fervently sucking on her neck, behind her ear where the skin made her feel weak in the knees and slow on the brain. It left her syrupy, like fancy molasses; all too ready to pour forever, if that was what was needed, in this case.

It distracted her long enough for him to roll on the condom and slam himself home, her breath choking in her throat. She whined, his hand slowly pulling her leg up around his waist. Her skin was still slick with half-dried sweat, but it didn’t seem to bother him as he fell into an unforgiving rhythm, snapping his hips against hers and driving his thumb over her clit.

Stevie squealed, clawing her fingers up his shirt and down his back, making him hiss. She knew she might have drawn blood but couldn’t bring herself to care. If anything, it gave her a sick sense of satisfaction to know that she was quite literally sinking her claws into this asshole. The idea of leaving a mark on Billy Hargrove made her pulse around him, and she chanced a nip at his jugular.

Billy tensed, and she remembered what she’d done to him, just a few days ago. She’d bit him right where she’d shot the syringe.

_Fuck. _

But then she heard him groan, and then felt his cock twitch inside of her. His hands gripped harder against her, and one tangled up in her hair. She giggled and he swatted at her ass. When his palm made contact, Stevie squeaked and felt herself get wetter, so close to orgasm that she could almost taste it.

But even then, she couldn’t help herself.

“Did you like that, Billy?” she murmured, her mouth moving against his pulse again. “Do you like it when I give as good as I get?”

He moved back for a second, pausing in his thrusts and making her moan in disappointment. His eyes glittered and his white teeth worried at the red of his lips. He seemed to have forgotten the cut on the lower left side, which had stopped bleeding but was picking up again.

“It’s the best, baby girl. You treat me so good when we’re like this”, he said finally, before wrapping himself back around her and pushing back in at an unforgiving pace that had her knees shaking.

If he hadn’t been holding her up, Stevie would’ve collapsed when he pounded her though her orgasm and kept going. She felt boneless, and they’d barely gotten started.

“Already giving up?” he taunted, stripping off his shirt as she tried to recover. His rhythm faltered as he did, and Stevie decided to take full advantage of that. This asshole might be good enough to be worth fucking rather than just sit around getting herself off alone all night, but he was also clearly in desperate need of a reminder of who was really in control, here.

Pushing him down flat to the ground, shag carpet breaking his fall but the air still knocked out of him, Stevie swung a leg over to straddle his hips. As he began to protest, she reached down and gave him a harsh, hungry kiss that left his lips swollen and red. And just because she could, she reached back down and did it again.

And then, reaching under her, she angled herself and pulled his cock up into her, groaning at how full she felt with him completely inside of her.

His eyes were half-lidded but with the pupils blown wide, his hands reaching up to hold her hips. The angle caught a spot inside of her that made her mind go blank with pleasure, and he smirked, twisting his pelvis up beneath her to push against it again.

“You’re so fucking pretty when you’re on top of me, baby girl”, he said in a raspy voice. He reached up and took her left nipple between his fingers and rolled it. Stevie moaned, bucking and grinding down.

Billy pulled himself up, his stomach flexing and finding a whole new way to thrust into her that made her eyes flutter shut and her hands fly up. They met behind his neck, pulling his face up to meet her tits. Grinning up at her, he put his mouth to use as she whined and writhed, the friction against her clit between them building up and up.

The licking and sucking he’d been doing on the underside of her breasts stopped, and suddenly, Billy fell backward, breaking the lace of her fingers behind his head to let it meet the carpet.

“What the—” Stevie exclaimed as Billy put a hand over her mouth and cut her off.

“Lean back”, he ordered through gritted teeth, placing a palm flat against her stomach and knocking her back onto her hands, which came out behind her to keep her from toppling over.

_Oh. _

_Oh. _

The new position had his cock rubbing up at her G-spot and now his fingers were reaching down to rub circles on her clit and—

Stevie's head flew backwards as she let out a soundless scream, her hips convulsing as she came so hard and oh _god she felt so fucking good—_

Billy’s breath was in her ear, having pulled himself up against her once more.

“You always come so good for me, baby”, he whispered, lips brushing her neck. “You should do it more often.”

As pleasure released its hooks from where they had caught within her, she scoffed and grabbed a hunk of his hair and tugged once, hard and fast. He gave a jump and shot her a dirty look, reaching over to gather her ponytail in his fist and do the same.

Stevie groaned, grinding down on him again. “Then fucking _make me_.”

And he did. A few times, in fact.

Afterwards, they lay there, panting, sweaty and in a heap on the floor.

“Holy fuck”, Stevie gasped, as she reached up and groaned in disgust at what her fingers found tangled in her bangs.

“Goddamnit, Billy, you got jizz in my hair!”

Snickering, he slapped her ass and watched her jump and yelp with a satisfied smirk on his face. Then, he got up and extended a hand her way.

“Come on, I’ll help you wash it out.”

Stevie hesitated, thinking that she shouldn’t be indulging this, giving him any sort of idea that this was anything that should ever be expected again. And then he waggled his eyebrows, and wriggled his fingers closer to her palm.

“C’mon, baby, I know I won’t be able to figure out your bougie shower knobs and shit without you there to show me”, he coaxed, worming his fingers between hers and lifting her arm up with a gentle tug.

She frowned, huffing. Sighing, Billy began to pout his lips.

“I’ll finger you again until you come. Twice.”

Her core warming again at the thought, she clenched her thighs and shot him an impatient look. Just remembering how well he could reach those good little spots with those thick fingers of his made her want.

“Okay”, she allowed, as he pulled her upright and out of bed.

“But you’re washing my back, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please excuse the long gap between updates, it's been one supervisor inspection after another at work. Ironically, I am not currently off from work during this troubling time, as I work at a location that offers an essential service. Even so, after dragging my heels for months, I've finally managed to pull together a chapter that has a bit of a happy ending, now that the events of season 2 are starting to blow over in this fic's timeline.   
Also, I apologize for my broken Spanish. I only took two years of it back in high school, and time has sandblasted that information from my brain. What was achieved here was only possible through the power of Google Translate, and I take full responsibility for any mistakes.   
Hopefully reading this let you forget about the state of the world at the moment, and I have some new ideas for scenes to come :)  
Wishing you all well, and reminding you to stay in when possible, stay vigilant about hygiene and keep your distance from others!  
As someone working at a pharmacy, I tend to see the worst of this situation, so please, be careful and stay healthy! <3


	10. You Can't Start a Fire Without a Spark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Billy Hargrove wears a men's large in jackets and Stevie spends her Saturday night with a bunch of twelve year-olds.

**Saturday November 11th, 1984**

“What about this one?”

She thrust a brown leather bomber jacket at him, lined with fake fur on the inside and the kind of heavy needed to cut the wind and chill of the Midwest. Billy squinted at it and then caught the number on the tag and shook his head, scowling.

Biting the inside of her cheek, Stevie put it back on the rack without a word, and moved to pull out another coat, this one a grey wool peacoat, silver buttons and long enough to hit the middle of a tall man's calf.

She ran her hand over the textured sleeve and checked the price. Not bad.

When she’d insisted on dragging him to the local Salvation Army to get something that would actually keep him warm until spring, he'd argued with her, talking some macho bullshit about how he didn’t feel the cold. He’d huffed and puffed like a profiterole in a hot oven until Stevie had needled him enough into admitting the truth; when Billy had left his house the night before, it had been in a hurry, and not with enough time to grab either keys or his wallet.

He’d admitted it with his eyes fixed on the kitchen island separating them in a weirdly domestic cereal breakfast scene. The corners of his mouth had gone tight and his eyes hooded, and he’d turned right back to his food after he said his piece. Stevie had been left ignored, a giant lump in her throat she couldn’t swallow past that kept any more Cap'n Crunch from making its way down.

After she’d given him a sharp look when he’d gotten up and tried to turn without putting his bowl in the sink, he'd guiltily shuffled back and put the dishes where they belonged, she'd announced that they were going shopping, and that he could pay her back Monday.

Before she'd become friends with Jonathan Byers, she hadn’t been familiar with what it was to budget, to parse out each dollar wrung carefully from working hours at minimum wage. She hadn’t had anyone in her life who'd had to save for new sneakers or chip in for groceries or the electrical bill.

Now, having seen the tension in his shoulders when she'd insisted they go out for ice cream every Friday, having received grim-faced _no thank you_s when she insisted she paid when she found out he didn’t have the money, she knew a bit better.

She was still spoiled, sure, she couldn’t deny that, but she’d like to think that she was just a little bit less insensitive to the pride of a person who had grown up with much less than she had.

So when she'd offered to spot him the cash, and he'd shot back with a heated reassurance that if he said he was good for the money, then he was _good for the money_; jaw and fists clenched, she'd quietly replied that _of course he was_, _but that it was 32 degrees out and she was not driving his ass to the ER for hypothermia because she had plans for the afternoon. _

He’d been less of a stubborn prick after that.

“If you think I’m trying that thing on, you really _are_ fucking crazy, girl.”

She jumped slightly when she felt his voice right by her ear, making the jacket slide from the slick wood hanger and hang lopsided, almost drooping to the floor. Cursing, she hurried to adjust it, grabbing the shoulder pads to straighten out the fabric.

“You seem so sure I won’t be able to make it through the winter just by layering up”, he scoffed, leaning back and flipping through some flannels to her left. “It also astounds me that you even give a shit if I freeze my balls off.”

“Because”, she said, frowning and flipping through the rest of the rack, hoping he wouldn’t see her expression. “I have a vested interest in the dick attached to said parts.”

He smirked, and went to open his mouth before she cut him off, scowling.

“Yes, asshole, you’re a decent enough lay that I intend on maybe repeating the experience again sometime in the near future. But don’t take it personally if I still think you’re the must insufferable piece of shit in senior year.”

She could feel the tops of her ears burning and thanked her lucky stars she’d left her hair down to counter the aggressive hickey he'd left on the left side of her neck. She’d smacked him in the back of the head when she'd discovered it once they’d tumbled into the bathroom, intent on getting clean and getting off again.

“Besides”, she reasoned, holding out a felt army-issue winter jacket; well-worn and just as well-mended. “You’re a California boy who won’t make it through his first blizzard, let alone his first ice storm. The power was out for two days straight in -30-degree weather with the wind chill the year I got my driver's license.”

Billy stopped protesting, instead considering the coat she held out. His brown had furrowed, and he was looking it over for tears and feeling the quality of the material. The interior was quilted and the insulation was thick and had real weight to it, and the corduroy collar was still in good condition, as was the zipper. The elbows had been patched with leather, and the stays on the buttons had clearly been replaced.

“I’ll try it on.”

Shucking off his leather jacket, he pulled on the new one, fingering the collar.

“Y'know, we never did finish our conversation from the closet”, he muttered, checking himself out in one of the many mirrors lining the ends of the racks of clothing.

He’d said it so casually, so off-handedly that Stevie had barely even registered his words until he turned to her expectantly.

“Well?”

Her fingers picked at her tights, nails catching in nylon and skin. She licked her lips and avoided his bright blue eyes.

“I said all I needed to say, Billy. I don’t know what else you want me to say.”

And she shifted, moving down the aisle and into women’s clothing. She did have an interview later, and she could use a new outfit. She felt him follow her as she sorted through hangers featuring fringed white leather jackets, royal blue pantsuits that had heavy enough shoulder pads to outfit a linebacker and over-bedazzled magenta turtleneck sweaters. She needed something that would match the skirt she was wearing but that wouldn’t come off as too young or too risqué. The hem of her miniskirt did enough in that department, she reasoned.

Billy leaned over the lilac blouse she was considering, his chin resting on her shoulder and his fucking dumbass mullet tickling her ear.

She was going to hack it off with scissors one day, and there would be nothing he would be able to do to stop her, she thought viciously, pushing aside the blouse to inspect a tan sweater with large, open sleeves.

He seemed to pay her frustration no mind, instead fixated on his goal once more.

“I want you to tell me what it is you did that has you tangled up with the government and the research center outside of town, and why you have blood on that bat you always seem to be carrying around”, Billy whispered, his hands smoothing down the sides of her waist. Stevie shivered, the skin on the backs of her knees going goose-fleshed. She felt fucking freezing.

“I want to know about the thing that hunted Hawkins and almost ate Byers' kid brother. I want to know why you were at his house with my step-sister on Sunday night. I want to know what has everyone in this town so fucking scared that they can’t piss straight.”

Stevie shuddered, her shoulders tensing as she felt cold and damp in her lungs and in her brain. The images that Billy drew up with his words were gnawing through her head, and she knew, she just fucking knew that if she looked around the corner of her eye, she would see it because the lights were flickering and she could feel the claws on the back of her neck and taste the fear in her throat—

_Why did we ever think it was gone it’ll never leave now that we let it out and let it in **we let it in and now it won’t leave and there’s blood in the water—**_

Her bat was in the car and if she ran out the door (seven feet and a half to her left) to her car (keys in pocket and windows rolled up), it would take her six seconds to slam her ass down in the driver’s seat (check the rear view for pursuit because they have her scent, now), push back the front passenger seat and emerge, bat in hand and swinging hard.

But instead, she was just staring at a mustard stain while Billy stared at her.

“Not here.”

His mouth gaped, as if he couldn’t quite believe her.

“I’ve been waiting on this for a fucking week and you want me to wait some more?”

Turning to face him, she kept her mouth flat and her eyes hard.

“Yes. Is that going to be a problem?”

Billy looked as if he was about to open his mouth and announce that _yes, this **is** going to be a problem, _and then he considered the clenching of her hands, the tightness of her mouth, and the finality of her tone.

And then, she liked to imagine, he considered that she was his ride out of here and he lived across town, and she kept a weapon covered in monster guts under where he was planning on sitting. So when he closed his mouth and shook his head, her smile was radiant.

“Good. Now, help me find a top that matches this skirt.”

][][][][][][][][][][][][

“Turn up here”, Billy said, pointing his arm across her chest to the left. His eyes lingered.

She’d left the store with a black sweater, cashmere-soft and clinging to her comfortably. Changing in the car, she’d let him run his eyes down her sides and rolled her own.

Boys were so simple.

But they’d barely spoken since they’d left the parking lot, and Stevie had announced that she had her interview in half an hour, so she’d need to know where to drop him off.

He’d been pouting a bit after she’d shut him down in the store, but that seemed to be the straw that broke the camel’s back. He’d become outright grumpy after mumbling out that he was meant to be staying at Tommy’s that night.

“I know where I’m going”, she snapped, turning the wheel.

It wasn’t like she hadn’t been there a million times, like she hadn’t been there so often that Mrs. H knew how she took her coffee, and that she was willing to help out in the kitchen if she was up before breakfast was ready, just doing busywork like grating potatoes for hash browns or dolloping pancake batter onto a hot griddle.

She and Carol and Tommy had been close, once.

She hadn’t been since she’d started hanging out with Nancy.

And maybe she was a bit bitter.

Neither Jon or Nance had picked up the phone or swung by to check in since the incidents of the week before. Rationally, she knew why. Their brothers were likely still recovering from the whole ordeal, and they likely weren’t doing so hot either. Not to mention, they were together now and trying to hold things together at the Byers house. Joyce had to have been a wreck between returning to work to pay the bills, caring for Will and now that Bob was no longer around…

She swallowed.

She knew that just because they hadn’t been around lately didn’t mean that they didn’t care. But it was hard to remind herself of that when she was shivering on her bedroom floor, hiding under her bed because it was cover and she didn't trust how her windows looked into her bed, and how far the door was from where she laid to rest at night. So she gritted her teeth, gave them their space and re-arranged hers in the days she’d stolen away.

Now, her bed was tucked into a corner by the door, and she didn’t getting under the covers anymore.

It was all about making little accomodations; small adjustments, she told herself as she began shifting her sleeping schedule so that she napped in the mid-afternoon when her classes would be letting out. She felt better about sleeping during the day.

She'd never heard of a demogorgon stalking prey on the sunlight.

But still, she was alone.

The only person she’d spoken to before returning to school had been Angie, who'd been disgusted when she'd stumbled onto her on a bad day. She’d shrieked when she’d knocked over the plastic half-gallon bottle of vodka by her bedroom door, and had sworn a blue streak when she'd gone to empty the trash and found vomit.

Stevie had only felt mildly ashamed and embarrassed, as the woman had berated her for fifteen minutes about underage drinking and liver failure. She’d mostly just felt hungover.

It had been worth it, to drown the feeling of deep void in her chest, so heavy it dragged her down to the sheets of her bed even when she was too scared to sleep in it past sunset. So she drank to try to fill it, and instead ended up knocking herself into a deep, dreamless sleep and making herself sick.

So when she thought back on how she’d spent her summers sunbathing by Tommy's pool, making punch with Carol for a Christmas party taking place in the living room, breathlessly drunk and high after stumbling back from a party to sleep in a tangled heap of blankets in his basement, it stung. She remembered freshman year and kicking Tommy in the balls after he’d broken up with Carol the first time, only to have him hand her an invitation to his birthday two weeks later when he made the rounds. She remembered sharing quiet cigarettes on the roof outside his room after Carol passed out first, like she always did, and how he always had a cold beer for her when she got to the party, no matter whose house it was at.

And she remembers throwing it all away.

She doesn’t regret what she’s done.

Tommy and Carol were cruel and petty, like she’d been, like she was trying to no longer be. One day, they’d grow out of it and move past all the small town bullshit, but until then, she knew that she couldn’t go back.

It just hurt, now that she was reminded of how she’d once lived life in the sun, and now, she was left out in the cold dark of night.

“So when exactly are we going to talk about this?”

Billy sounded like his mind was somewhere else when he asked the question. He had his arm leaning against the window, and his head pressed into the palm of his hand. He looked like he was tired.

“Monday, at lunch. I’m busy tomorrow”, Stevie ground out after a moment, turning left again. They were only a few minutes away.

She wasn’t busy, really, but she just didn’t have the energy to deal with this again the next day. She needed not to think about all of the shit that was about to rain down on her head for telling him. She needed not to think about any of this shit, as hard as it was to try.

“Fine”, he muttered, looking back over at her. Stevie stubbornly kept her eyes on the road, even as she could feel him settle his gaze on her. He seemed to be thinking, because when she chanced a glance in the rear-view mirror, his brow was furrowed.

As she pulled into Tommy's driveway, she could see him standing outside with a cigarette, staring with a sneer on his face at her car. She stopped a few feet from where he stood, and finally turned back to Billy.

“See you Monday, baby”, he smirked, unbuckling his seatbelt and sliding over to drag her into a kiss, his tongue swiping over her lip and teasing its way inside her mouth. Stevie squirmed, heat building in her stomach from where he’d slid his hands down to touch her breasts, but slightly annoyed with his enthusiasm.

Tommy was still watching, for fuck's sake. Was Billy getting off on this?

She assumed it was some sort of power move, where he asserted that even though she was holding all of the cards, he could still get her to let him do whatever the fuck he pleased to her. All he had to do was ask.

She didn’t like this. Not one bit.

It made her fucking _furious_.

When he finally relented, leaving her irritated and wound up, he gave her a toothy grin and got out of her car, walking over to take one of Tommy's smokes.

He turned his back on her, clearly dismissing her.

Stevie was seething. If she hadn’t had to get to her interview in the next fifteen minutes, she’d have gotten out of the car and ripped him a new one. She would have emasculated him with words and let Tommy watch, just like he seemed to be more than happy to do when Billy had been crawling all over her moments before.

He was a piece of shit, and he was _still _trying to get her to bow down. Fucking prick.

Just because she had gotten down on her knees to suck him off didn’t mean she wouldn’t kick him in the face when he came begging for more.

_There will be blood_, she promised herself, backing out of the drive and heading back into town.

][][][][][][][][][][][][

After her interview, which had gone fabulously, in no small part because of her charming demeanor and her assurance that early mornings were no problem, no problem at all, she found herself on the Hendersons’ doorway.

“Why hello, Stevie!” Mrs. Henderson gushed, opening the door after she’d rung the doorbell. “And how are you doing on this fine evening?”

How _was_ she doing?

That was something that even she didn’t quite know how to answer, and so instead, she fell into routine and dazzled her host with a smile and empty platitudes.

“I’m doing very well, Mrs. Henderson. How are you?”

After the woman replied in kind, Stevie got down to brass tacks and explained that Dustin had invited her over to watch the Star Wars movies the weekend before, and that as a good babysitter she just couldn’t refuse an invitation to such a prestigious event.

She really did lay it on thick. But as always, Mrs. Henderson ate it right up and escorted her down to the basement, where three of the little shits were currently staging some sort of fantasy battle with swords assembled from highlighters stuck end-to-end.

It was almost impressive, their commitment. Really.

They’d even thrown on a mess of vaguely-medieval capes and assorted clothing, with Lucas in particular sporting a statement piece of a brightly feathered cap. They’d all frozen, mid-thrust-and-parry as she’d cleared her throat from the landing of the stairs.

“Gentlemen”, she grinned, noting the blushes that had appeared when she had. “At ease.”

“Harrington!” Dustin shouted, scrambling over the others and a mess of blankets separating them. “Did you get the job?”

Her grin widened, and she produced the bag of peanut butter chunk cookies she’d picked up on her way out of the bakery. “I start Monday. Well, Tuesday, technically. Really, really early. Or Monday, really, really late.”

“How early exactly are we talking?” Lucas winced.

“I start at 2 am”, she answered, relishing the disgusted look on Mike’s face. Dustin and Lucas also looked horrified, and she just laughed.

“Guys, I don’t sleep very much anyways. At least now, I can get paid to wake up early and haul heavy objects for money instead of doing it for free in the weight room before swim practice.”

Mike rolled his eyes, but she caught the look that the other two exchanged, and tried not to think too hard about it. This was going to be a good day.

“I still haven’t told you the best part about all this”, she added, passing the bag of cookies over to Dustin before taking one for herself. “I get to take home anything left over from the day before.”

“Wait”, Lucas breathed, his eyes widening as he considered the possibilities. “But that would mean free cookies, free cake, free pie…”

“Free sleepover supplies forever!” Dustin cheered, throwing his arms up in the air. Mike was still working through his second cookie, and eyeing a third. The kid seemed like he’d grown three inches in the last two weeks, she could swear.

Stevie nodded along, before she considered and plucked a twenty out of her back pocket.

“Since the bakery doesn’t do pizza and Domino's delivers till midnight, dinner's on me tonight, boys.”

A mess of _extra cheese, get extra cheese, don't let them put olives on it they’re gross_ and _meat lover's or nothing_ later, she managed to rattle out the order to the poor kid working the phone, and pizza was on the way.

As she turned to announce that dinner would be served when the pizza was delivered in thirty minutes or less when she caught the tail end of a conversation that had Dustin looking worried, Lucas fiddling with his sleeves and brought out the dark circles under Mike's eyes.

“—haven’t heard from him yet”, the latter whispered, licking his lips nervously. “His mom said she wasn’t sure if it was a good idea if he sees us yet.”

“But what does that mean?” Lucas asked, confused. “We haven’t seen him since Jonathan and his mom tried to exorcise him. Could-could that mean that he’s still…?”

“Will is okay”, Dustin reassured him. “He’s got to be, or they’d have said something.”

“Unless they didn’t”, muttered Mike, scowling. “You’d be shocked at what they don’t tell us ‘cause they think we can’t handle it.”

“Hey, barf brain, this isn’t about you and El”, Henderson barked, turning on him. “This is about our friend!”

Stevie decided enough was enough. Putting her hands on her hips, she took a few steps over.

“That’s enough, boys”, she said curtly.

“Will is fine, and if it makes you feel better, I’ll ask Jonathan about it tomorrow.”

The last part was said grudgingly, as she was still delicate from her last interaction with Jon and uncertain of where they stood. She knew they’d come to a whole new level of understanding and respect that night, but she still couldn’t shake the feeling that he didn’t really like her all that much. It burrowed under her skin like the chiggers Patty L. had gotten one summer at camp when they were twelve. She felt at a loss. For once, she didn’t feel like she knew where she stood.

But she knew that the kids were worried about their friend and decided that they deserved some answers.

“And if it makes you feel better, Wheeler, they would tell me if anything was wrong. They know I can handle it.”

She pinned him with her stare and leaned down a bit, so they were eye to eye.

“And I know that you can, too. So you can trust me to let you know if ever I hear about anything going wrong. Got it?”

Mike looked like he didn’t quite know what to do with her promise. He looked a bit out on the spot, like when someone surprised you with a birthday cake at a restaurant. The kid looked like he was unsure about how to move forward.

“S-sure, I guess”, he finally answered. He had trouble meeting her eyes at first, but once she caught his gaze, she knew that she’d gotten the message across. Stevie straightened up and beamed.

“Good. Now, pizza comes in less than half an hour, or our money back. Does anyone want to start the movie?”

“Star Wars!” the boys all chorused, having already forgotten the heavy tension that had filled the room moments before.

She wished the attention span of teenagers was as short, she thought as she tried not to think of the impending conversation with Billy looming over her.

_No_, she decided. _You’re going to have a good time tonight, and you’re going to forget about that until Monday. _

Determined to have a fun night, Stevie focused wholeheartedly on a movie she wouldn’t usually have given much of her attention, and felt all the better for it.

Once they’d settled down for the first movie, they'd fallen into a comfortable pattern of Dustin rattling off behind the scenes factoids about the franchise, while Mike and Lucas enthusiastically re-enacted the final battle scenes in the movie before announcing they’d be watching all three films that night. They had decided that they needed to 'educate her in matters of culture and good sci-fi', and that as she hadn’t watched any of the movies, they’d need the whole night to finish off A New Hope through Return of the Jedi.

By the time they'd reached the Battle of Endor, it was past midnight and Stevie had dozed off, sinking into the depths of the Lay-Z-Boy she’d reclined back and piled high with pillows. The kids were sprawled out across the basement, Dustin and Lucas sharing the couch and Mike huddled over a bean bag in the corner of the room

She'd felt comfortable and full, the corners of her mouth sore from laughing so hard and drowsy from all of the pizza and cookies. Until she hadn’t been.

Startled awake at the sound of scratching, harsh in her ears and creeping down the back of her neck, Stevie was most definitely not at peace when she awoke. She took a harsh breath, her bangs plastered to her forehead with cold sweat.

Staring up at the ceiling for a moment, she exhaled slowly, convinced that it had just been a bad dream. And then she heard it again, from the door leading down to the basement from the garage. Scratching away at the corners of her mind, making her heart pound.

_Not here. _

Sitting up quickly, she pushed the recliner back into position without making too much noise, and got to her feet and surveyed the room, trying to find a weapon. Something heavy, she thought. She didn’t have those jagged edges to drag and rip through flesh like she was used to with that bat of hers. She'd need a bit of extra heft to get the job done.

Considering a battered hockey stick, she moved on past the couch and past Dustin's wide open eyes and stare—

_Wait just—_

“Henderson!” she hissed, whipping her head around to make sure that it hadn’t heard her; wasn’t hunting them right now, when they were vulnerable. “What are you doing awake?”

He sighed, ruffling his curls away from his face. “It’s the cat. The new one Mom got to replace the old one. We call this one Mews Two.”

Stevie relaxed, one muscle at a time. She did it consciously, and still holding the hockey stick. Her cheeks beginning to burn, she propped it back up against the wall where she’d found it in the first place.

“Don’t mind me”, she said quietly, moving back to sit on the edge of the armchair. She could still feel the adrenaline coursing through her veins, making her fingers tingle with energy and her eyes widen as they sharpened in the dark.

“It reminds me of the bus too”, Dustin admitted, sitting up slowly. Her heart sank as she imagined him having to deal with the same monsters in his head. She almost couldn’t handle the idea of it, gripping her nails into her thighs, having removed her pantyhose after the Vader reveal in The Empire Strikes Back to get more comfortable. Her breathing calmed a bit, and she opened her mouth to speak.

“Sometimes I hear it in my sleep”, she whispered. “Other times it's their screams. And on the bad nights…”

She refused to add fuel to the fire by finishing that sentence. He didn’t need to know that she was haunted by the idea of Barb's screams, of how she knew they'd echoed; unheard as she'd gasped for air and prayed for help. Or how she heard the kids, terrified and defiant, ready to charge and throw up all at once because they were so shaken.

Or how on some nights, when her mind was being especially and carefully cruel, it was her own fear that she heard, and Stevie would imagine in vivid and bright detail how it would feel to be eaten alive by one of those things. In these dreams, they would always start with the feet, because it would keep her alive the longest as they burrowed teeth into her marrow and spat out the tendons.

“I hear Will”, he said softly, drawing a blanket up and over himself. He wrapped his arms around his knees, which were drawn close to his chest.

Protecting his vital organs, she thought, swallowing.

“I didn’t use to have very many bad dreams, but now”, he continued, as her nails burrowed deeper into her skin. “Now, I have them. Not as often as Will did, but enough.”

She frowned. She didn’t like him discounting his suffering like that, like it was less than someone else's just because it was his and he should be smarter.

“How do you stop being scared?”

His voice was small and quiet for once, instead of shooting back snappy comments and making people twice his age feel like less than half of that. In the dark, his eyes reflected the light of the wall plug-in UFO lamp that cast green over the basement. He looked like he was holding back tears.

_Aw, hell. _

“C’mere, kid”, she said, patting the space next to her on the recliner. The fact that Dustin didn’t protest that he wasn’t a kid, that he shouldn’t be treated like one, was enough to convince her that he needed a hug.

Stevie wrapped one arm over him, pressing him into her side and leaning her chin over his curls.

“You don’t ever stop being scared”, she finally admitted, thinking of how it felt to make peace with death and go out to face it swinging. “You don’t stop shaking, or crying, or wanting to run and hide.”

There was no point in lying.

Friends didn’t lie.

“Then how do you do it?”

He was muffled by her shoulder, and the vibration of his words made her pull her other arm around him too. She could feel the damp of tears against her sweater but couldn’t bring herself to care. Besides, it had cost her all of four dollars at the Salvation Army.

“You don’t stop being scared”, she repeated. Her hand stroked his hair gently. “You just start being brave, too.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Dustin, when all hope seems gone, when it turns out that Vader is your dad and he cut off your hand anyways, and the Rebel Alliance is in pieces, you're scared, right?” Stevie felt him laugh, his chest hiccupping against hers.

“The only way to get through, is to know that you’re scared and to keep going anyways.”

“Bravery”, she told him, watching as the sun began to rise in the high-placed basement windows, first tendrils of light cutting through the night. “Is being ready to piss your pants and stepping up to the plate anyways.”

She felt him sigh, and they sat there quietly for a moment.

“Stevie”, he finally asked, pulling his head up a bit. “Does that mean that on the bus, when you faced off against the demo-dogs, and later, at Will's house with Max's brother… does that mean that you were scared?”

Her laugh caught her by surprise, and saw Mike beginning to stir, and cut it short. She didn’t need the boys up before dawn and wreaking havoc on Mrs. Henderson's sleeping schedule.

Instead, she smiled, warm and bright like the sun breaking through the night, and reached up to ruffle his hair, much to his protests.

“Kid, I was fucking terrified.”

][][][][][][][][][][][][

**Monday November 13th, 1984**

Slamming her locker shut, Stevie meandered over to where Jon was rummaging through his, sorting through legal envelopes full of prints and crumpled papers from his physics notebook.

“So”, she began, her hands shoved deep in her jacket pockets, rocking back and forth on her heels before coming to a stop. “Billy Hargrove may be under the impression that I…”

Jonathan glanced up through his fringe, squinting.

“That you what?”

“That I have a thing for you and that that’s why I was at your house that night the other week and that that’s why I was sad at Tina's party and also when I fought with Nance at the pool during practice”, she let out, words tumbling over each other as they spilled from her mouth in a hurry.

“_Excuse me?_”

Jon's ears had gone bright red and his nostrils flared. He’d stopped sorting through his locker and had instead turned to face her.

“And why in the hell would he ever need to think that?”

“Scratch that”, he amended a second later. “Why in the hell would he ever _believe _that in the first place?”

“Hey, stop selling yourself short, man. Clearly, there’s got to be something worthwhile if Nance is willing to give you a shot”, she joked weakly.

“Stevie.”

The look he was giving her said that he’d run out of patience, and that it was time for her to step up and own her reasons.

Taking a deep breath, Stevie looked down at her feet, trying to avoid his stare as she let herself be as vulnerable as she had been the night they’d closed a portal to another world.

“I-I couldn’t exactly tell him about me and Nancy”, she said in a small voice, her arms wrapping around each other tightly. Picking at a thread on her sleeve, she continued.

“Billy knows something is up. He came to the house that night to pick up Max, and he was confrontational, and we knew we had to get moving before it was too late”, she said haltingly, her words hesitant.

“I shot him full of the sedative we had ready for Will, and then brought him back to his place to help clean up after we torched the tunnels.”

Jonathan's face was twisted with confusion and reprimand, and it made her teeth hurt. Or maybe that was from clenching them together so hard.

Because if Jon was already ready to give her shit, then what she was about to admit would be the nail in the coffin.

“He confronted me, asked what I was doing at your place, and with his step-sister. And when he came up to your house that night in the first place, he got mad because someone told him that rumor about the fight behind the movie theater last year, and thought that…” she trailed off, wishing that she didn’t have to say the words.

“Thought that what? And which rumor?” Jonathan asked in a bitter voice, his tone resigned. “There are so many.”

Taking a deep breath, she met his stare, feeling every inch as tired as she should be. “Billy thought that I was in love with you even after you supposedly beat the shit out of me that day.”

Jon's shoulders drew up near his ears and he pushed air out of his nose in a huff. He looked upset, and started blinking, likely trying to push tears out of his eyes.

It was exhausting, trying to ignore what everyone was saying.

She’d done what she could to push the gossip away from Jonathan and Nancy, but she couldn’t just out with the truth and be done with it. And as much as she was loath to admit it, she didn’t hold as much sway as she once had at Hawkins High. Where once, people wouldn’t have even dared to whisper behind her back, now she heard it openly discussed in the halls.

But there was something about Hawkins and the Byers family.

They could never really catch a break.

“Hey”, she whispered, reaching a hand up to lay on his arm. “I told him the truth and gave him shit for even believing that bullshit in the first place. I think he got the message, at least about the fight, but he still thinks that I’m head over heels for you for some reason.”

Jon gave a watery laugh. “Probably because you don’t worship his dick like the rest of the senior year does.”

Stevie winced, thinking about Halloween, and his room, and her shower, then her room. Then her shower again.

“Yeah… about that”, she said, her hand coming up to tuck away strands of hair behind her ear. “I may have had sex with him. A few times.”

Jonathan groaned and banged his forehead against his locker.

“For fuck's sake, Stevie!”

Cringing away, her fingers curled inwards like basil wilting in the dark and the heat, she flinched her hand from his arm. She was swaying in place, now, waiting for him to storm off or call her an idiot.

“Just… why did you have to give in to him?” he moaned, rubbing his forehead. “He was bad before, and now he’s going to fucking insufferable.”

The corners of her lips inches upward slowly, hesitantly.

“I have like three classes with him and he sits next to me in Social Studies and never shuts up”, Jon grumbled. “If I have to hear about all the sick shit you two get up together, I might just yack.”

Her laugh spilled out into the hallway, as did the contents of Jonathan’s backpack as he leaned sideways onto his locker, groaning more as his Physics notes scattered across the tiled floor. The two of them bent over, scrambling to pick up the papers that had spread out.

As she gathered a significant pile, she cleared her throat awkwardly.

“So, I hung out with Dustin over the weekend, and some of the others came out. I noticed that Will wasn’t there…”

She trailed off, biting her lip and setting the stack, side-down against the floor to straighten the pile. She tried to avoid looking over, because she didn’t quite know what to say.

“Yeah”, Jon muttered, shuffling papers into the right directions. “He’s been having a bit of a rough time, especially with how Bob…”

_Oh._

She felt a pang echo through her chest, ringing through her ribcage and out to her throat and her diaphragm, stealing away the breath she’d been holding. She felt her heart hurting, felt cold pins and needles through her fingers as she moved to rub at it over her button-up.

He trailed off as she realized he must have noticed her features fall, her eyes prickling a bit in the corners and her brow and teeth bearing down, burrowing into her bottom lip. His hair was waved back over his eyes as he took a few shuddering breaths, in through the nose and out through the mouth.

Straightening up after a moment, he worked his lips into a shaky smile, making a distinct effort to meet her eyes. Stevie saw something warm and bright there, like a distant hope shining through the forest of dark and dangerous things.

“He’s been in and out of counselling sessions with the government therapists for the past week. They even wanted to keep him in observation overnight after everything went down, but there was no way were going to let them do that. So instead, Will’s doing daily appointments with some psychiatrist that Mom signed off on, and she goes with him.”

“Oh”, she said dumbly, handing the notes back to him. “Good. Great. It’s just—”

They both got to their feet, making eye contact again. It had stopped feeling awkward, and it made her feel relieved.

“Dustin was so excited to re-watch Star Wars for the millionth time, and he wasn’t sure if Will had bailed because of the Storm Trooper Incident of ’83, or because he was feeling off, or just, really…”

She grinned, thinking back to the evening she’d spent with the kids.

“Will was pretty bummed about it, but he had a session early the next morning, and they’re pretty strict about them so he couldn’t get out of it”, Jon reassured her, smiling. “They’re going to let him start doing phone calls soon, and by the end of next week, he should be doing well enough for visitors. They said that he’s probably going to be back in school by the time we start gearing up for Thanksgiving.”

She felt light for the first time in weeks, just knowing that he was going to be okay, _they would all be okay, _she laughed, her teeth and lips parting to let it ring out into the hallway.

“I’m happy to hear that”, Stevie admitted. “I’m really, really happy to hear that.”

Jon looked so hopeful that she wished she could rummage through his locker and whip out his camera to bottle this moment of just something so good, something to look forward to. It made her want to be the kind of person who had pictures of her friends smiling, to fill the empty house she lived in and make it a home.

It made her feel like she _liked_ the idea of a future, because this one looked so bright to her. And she caged that hope in her chest, holding it close like a warm ember in the eye of a snowstorm as her friend smiled _for real_ for the first time in a month.

But of course, her day wasn’t done, and life had other plans.

“Hey, babe, still good to meet at lunch?”

The question had been hollered across the hall, in a cocky, loud voice.

“Quit your pissing contest bullshit, Hargrove”, she shot back immediately, not even having to turn to look to know that it was Billy being the asshole from a dozen feet away. He was making his way to her, flanked by Matthews and Lowell from swim team. Though he was wearing his habitual jean jacket, the black and khaki green Hawaiian print shirt underneath was barely half-buttoned, and was that _baby oil _he’d smeared all over his chest?

It gleamed under the dim lighting, reflecting off a silver medallion he had hanging low over his sternum. She’d noted previously that he was noticeably hairless for the most part—something that was the norm for a competitive swimmer, but that he had definitely stepped it up in terms of maintenance.

Stevie was distantly wondering where he went to get waxed, because her esthetician was on maternity leave for the next two months. And then she remembered the reason for that extra swagger in his step as he parted the crowd and stepped closer, until he was less than a foot away.

_Fucking Christ, Jonathan was right. _

_How the hell am I supposed to deflate that huge head he’s gone and gotten when I was dumb enough to fall into bed with him?_

“Hey now”, he cooed, sliding a smoke into the corner of his mouth from where it had been tucked behind his ear. He probably thought that he looked slick, but she could see where his hands still shook.

She wondered if he’d been home.

“Wanna go for a smoke with me?”

He kept shooting looks at the guys following him, as if to wink and nudge and nod and brag about all the shit they’d gotten up to whenever they fucked. Maybe they knew that she liked rough sex, maybe they knew she’d come when he’d called her pussy heaven, she mused. But they knew something, and she wasn’t playing this game right now.

She had more important shit to deal with.

Better things and better days to think of.

That, and she needed to nip this in the bud before Billy decided that it was okay to be comfortable, to treat her like she was just anyone. He didn’t deserve anything more than she wanted to give, she decided.

And she wouldn’t give up her dignity.

Frowning, she stepped up for a moment to grab the cigarette from his mouth and put it in the breast pocket of her cardigan. “I need a smoke, sure, but I think I’ll go with Jonathan, thanks.”

Jon reached back into his locker for his jacket without a second thought, and pulled it out along with the pack she knew he kept on the left lower pocket for whenever he got stressed or angry. He kept his eyes fixed on his feet again, and now that he was no longer smiling, Stevie felt the cold begin to creep back in.

She shivered.

“Baby, don’t give me the cold shoulder”, Billy mocked, pulling out another cigarette and lighting it. He blew the smoke out over her and she wrinkled her nose. “Not after all that loving we’ve shared.”

Loving was too strong a word.

Her lip curled, and she looked down her nose at him as if he was something stuck to the bottom of her shoe. She gave him the look that she knew made men feel about two inches tall, like they were nothing.

Because he didn’t get to be more to her than that, she thought viciously, her nails raking across the side of her jeans.

“I’ll talk to you at lunch. Go back to your circle-jerk in the boys’ locker room, and come find me when you’re ready to have a serious conversation like an adult”, Stevie sniffed, turning away dismissively and back to face Jon, who had his jacket on and had been rolling his eyes the whole time.

“Let’s go.”

The pair headed for the exit door at the end of the hall by the music room, and Stevie squinted when the pale, anemic light hit her eyes. They continued out into the parking lot, stopping to lean on Jon’s car.

Expectantly, she leaned over when he pulled out a book of matches and lit one, touching it to the end of her smoke. Dropping the cheap cardboard, he pulled out one of his own, slotted it between his lips and scratched another match to life.

They took a few drags, staring out at the desolate landscape of fields that edged the school in silence, before Jonathan opened his mouth.

“Bob’s funeral is on Thursday, if you want to come.”

Stevie took another inhale, feeling the nicotine turn her fingers into feathers, floating on the light breeze. Her heart hurt again.

“I think that Mom and Will—“, he cut himself off, taking a puff, exhaling and then clearing his throat and making careful, delicate eye contact.

“I-I’d like it if you could come. I know that you didn’t really know him, but I think that he would’ve liked you.”

She laughed, a watery sound that caught in her throat. She sniffled.

“Are you sure about that? I can kind of be a huge asshole”, she admitted, one arm extended straight out and holding her cigarette, the other crossed tightly over her chest and clutching her opposite elbow like her life depended on it.

He chuckled, ducking his head.

“Can’t we all?”

He breathed out, looking up again.

“What I’m really trying to say is that I don’t know if I can face this alone, Stevie. And I know that I haven’t ever really been great at asking for help, but I-I could really use a friend there.”

_Oh fuck, I’m crying again. _

She’d even worn mascara today to discourage herself from giving in to her emotions, but for this, she would make an exception. She could have black smeared up and down her face for all she cared, right now.

Wiping her cheeks, her nose and pushing her hair away, she nodded. “Of course, I’ll be there. What time, and where are they holding the service?”

Jon let out a sort of relieved laugh and reached out to fold her in with his arms, and she closed her eyes and buried her face into his shoulder. He was warm and solid, and though his frame was thin, she knew that he would weather this storm with her, and she could feel herself hope again.

_Maybe this won’t be forever._

_Maybe one day, we won’t be scared. _

“And what in the ever-blue fuck is going on here?”

_God fucking DAMN Billy Hargrove. _

Wrenching her face out from the junction between Jon’s neck and shoulder, Stevie bared her teeth and barely held back a scream of frustration.

“_Read the fucking room, Billy_”, she hissed, still crying, much to her own frustration. She fucking hated that he always seemed to find her when she was most vulnerable, and she resented that he was intruding on something so personal.

And yet, there she was, tears still streaming hot down her face and ready to just curl up and hide away for another week.

When he registered her shaking shoulders and the fact that she was crying for what must have seemed like the millionth time that week, his eyes narrowed and he turned on Jonathan.

“What the fuck did you do to her, asshole?” he spat, squaring his shoulders and blowing smoke out of his nostrils. “What did you fucking say to her?”

“Are you blind or did you get dropped on your head a lot as a child?” Stevie interjected, her voice going shrill as she felt the need to grab him by the shoulders and shake him until he saw sense. “This is a personal fucking conversation, and you have _nothing _to do with this. Back the hell off.”

Jon sniffled, wiping at his face with his sleeve. His hair was over his face again, and he looked like he had curled in on himself, trying to protect the parts of himself that were exposed and vulnerable. It made her lip start to quiver all over again. He didn’t fucking need this.

It reminded her of last fall, when she’d been a worse version of herself, and she’d been the one doing the yelling and posturing. Where it had been Jonathan, as it always seemed to be, because the world couldn’t bring itself to give the poor guy a break.

She felt nauseated.

Never mind that she was smoking on an empty stomach, which always made her feel just a bit ill afterwards, but the thought of it made her gut roll.

“I’ll talk to you, at lunch, _like we agreed_”, she continued, hackles still raised. “Until then, you can fuck right back off.”

Raising his hands in surrender, Billy took a step back, eyes wide but his brows furrowed. He didn’t seem any less angry or frustrated, though seemed to be willing to back down for the moment.

She’d never seen him do that. Maybe the tears made him uncomfortable, or the promise of their conversation later was enough to satisfy him for now. Whatever it was, she was glad it had de-escalated the situation.

She was still on thin ice with Hopper, and the man really, really didn’t need to get called in to break up a fight in the high school parking lot. Because Stevie knew that if it came to blows, it would come to blood.

She almost didn’t care. She was so fucking mad right now, she couldn’t even convince herself she wouldn’t feel satisfied punching him.

Which, you know, considering his home life, was a real douche move.

So she was just glad it hadn’t come to that.

“Y’know, Stevie, you don’t make this shit fucking easy at all”, Billy muttered, his hands coming back down so he could continue to smoke. One hand ran through his hair, and he exhaled loudly, a few seconds taking an eternity as he let it fall back to his side.

“Fine. I’ll talk to you later.”

And with that, he turned and headed back inside, leaving her to pick up the pieces in the parking lot.

She felt like an SAT vocab word to describe a feeling she couldn’t quite remember, like she couldn’t quite believe the sequence of events. She didn’t have words left in her to try to offer excuses or apologies to Jon, except to just shrug her shoulders and just express herself through the heavy sigh that escaped.

“Jesus fucking Christ”, he got out, ruffling his hair away. He looked almost like he pitied her as he smiled in a what-can-you-do kind of way, like he knew her mind had been made up—which it _was not_—and this was just going to be her life, now that she’d given Billy Hargrove an opening.

“You’re going to eat each other alive”, he said, his voice distant but also resigned. But then, he laughed, and the sound was sharp and unexpected enough that it startled her.

“Fuck, I have Social Studies after lunch.”

And then, she started laughing too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone for the continued support!
> 
> I can now also safely add 'Pandemic Checkpoint Operator' to my CV, so it's all about the little things, y'know?   
No, but in all seriousness, these weird times we live in have had me see the absolute best and worst in people. The extremes are jarring, but kindness and compassion have always outweighed the bad. 
> 
> I've been re-watching Stranger Things because I haven't seen the season four trailer yet, and I know, that's a flimsy excuse, but I'll take what I can get in the meantime. Hopefully revisiting the series will help give me a kick in the ass to put all of the ideas I have to paper. 
> 
> I'm hoping that you are all in good health, and that I will have more for you soon!


	11. Tightened our Belts, Abuse Ourselves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stevie breaks down the nitty-gritty bits of Hawkins for Billy, and breaks down a little herself.
> 
> Edit: TW for mentions of past sexual assault

**Monday November 13th, 1984**

He was leaning on the doorframe of her Spanish IV class when she emerged.

Stevie didn’t see him at first, until he shot out a hand to grasp her wrist and keep her from walking past him. She almost jumped out of her skin before she realized who’d been grabbing her.

“Jesus, you really didn’t want me ducking out on you, huh?”

She'd been so shaken that she’d forgotten to be mad at him for how he’d been such an insensitive douche, and when it came to mind, she realized that this wouldn’t be a productive conversation until she dropped it.

Reluctantly, she stowed the worst of her anger out of sight and out of mind, to be left forgotten until the day came that she needed an ace to throw out in an argument.

She knew that there would be another. She didn’t doubt that she’d need it.

“So, what’s the plan?”

Billy have her a flat look, and just grumbled about heading out to his car, dropping her arm once she’d agreed to follow. She scowled at his behavior, but shadowed his footsteps out to the parking lot.

Sliding in to the passenger seat, Stevie frowned, reaching back to adjust the seat, which was angled so low that she knew that Tommy had been riding shotgun last. The idiot might as well have scoliosis for how he contorted his back when he sat in a chair.

Struggling to find the right position for her height, Stevie fiddled with the lever a bit more. Billy cleared his throat impatiently, prompting her to glare up at him in the rear-view mirror.

“Are you done yet?”

She huffed, and settled on a setting that didn’t make her feel like she was about to pull her back.

“It’s going to be a long story. I want to be comfortable.”

Rolling his eyes, she heard a _sure thing, baby_ in a dry voice and fixed her eyes on the side mirror to see her own eyes, brown and—was that _mascara smudged all past her left eye?_

She scrubbed at it, annoyed that she hadn’t noticed it before she'd gone to class. Now, people were bound to talk.

Who was she kidding? With all the shit she had going on and happening around her, people were already talking.

_Fuck. _

She wanted to rub her eyes, but remembered the makeup, and settled for just messing with her hair until it was out of her face. And to think, she thought wryly, that just a few weeks ago, her life _wasn't _in complete shambles.

“Where are we heading?” she asked instead of giving in to her immediate instinct, which was to cry.

“Forest Mills”, he replied, turning right. “It’s quiet there, so I figured you'd prefer that while we talk.”

The pressure of the whole situation was beginning to make her sweat. She didn’t like the anxiety for reliving the events as she told them, of laying the bare truth down when so many had died for it to stay buried. And she was about to entrust the whole of it to Billy Hargrove, an impulsive, dangerous asshole.

But something kept her from ripping it away completely. Maybe it was how he seemed to actually give a shit about Max in a roundabout way, or how he'd let her put Faberge Organics into his stupid fucking mullet after they fucked in the shower despite rolling his eyes over and over. Maybe it was because he’d made her coffee in the morning. Maybe it was because she had yet to hear anyone calling her crazy, calling her batshit insane and a schizo wastoid.

Or maybe it was because she was a sucker for blue eyes.

She’d never really know.

But something in her gut told her that this wouldn’t end with her locked in federal prison for the rest of her conceivable life. That didn’t make telling it any easier, though.

“Look”, she started, moving her hands up and down her knees. “I just don’t get what you want me to explain to you. I told you pretty much everything that night, even though I probably shouldn’t have.”

“That’s the thing, Stevie”, Billy but out, rubbing the side of his face with one hand. “I don’t remember much about that night. I don’t know what the fuck was in that needle, but whatever it was definitely played a fucking number on my head.”

_Oh. _

_Oh no. _

She thought back to the night Carol had woken up next to with a boy visiting from out of town after a party, panicking and naked, unable to remember the night before. Stevie had come to pick her up after a tearful phone call, and had keyed his car on both sides on her way out.

It had shaken Carol for weeks afterwards, flinching away from touch like it burned, no matter who it came from. She'd felt helpless as her friend had reverted to a shadow of her former self, only to emerge from her dark spell a couple of weeks later, more bold and brash than ever. She refused to acknowledge the incident, changing the subject abruptly every time Stevie had brought it up, hoping to gauge Carol's state of mind.

It made her feel short of breath to think that she might have even accidentally done the same to another person.

“Fuck”, she breathed, and then began to panic. “Fuck, oh shit. Fuck, I'm so fucking sorry.”

“What the hell are you apologizing for?” he demanded, shooting her a sharp look, one brow raised. “For shooting me up in the first place?’

“Not that”, Stevie dismissed, her hands now picking at the seams if her jeans. “What we did after. I feel like a piece of shit. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have slept with you, I should’ve known you were too out of it—"

Billy cut her off, putting a hand down to stop the worrying of her own. “Baby, I remember that part just fucking fine.”

Pulling up to the park, he parked under a willow tree not too far from the dirt road leading through. She still felt tense, though the tension of guilt had left her body. Take a breath, she reminded herself.

“What I’m having trouble with are the details from that story you told me”, he continued, turning to face her. His expression assured her there would be no getting out of it, this time.

Stevie bit her lip, and cleared her throat.

“All right then. You wanted the whole story?”

He nodded, his gaze sharp and unmoving.

She took a deep breath. “This is going to be hard to believe, but bear with me…”

“There once was a little girl who was raised by bad men in a secret place, and taught to do impossible things. They stretched the capabilities of the human mind to its limits, and far beyond.”

Billy snorted, but didn’t say anything. She continued.

“One day, the girl came across a door between worlds, and the bad men asked her to knock. Something knocked back, and tore its way through”, Stevie recounted, thinking of how Nancy and the kids had been the ones to fill her in on the details surrounding the events she hadn’t been a part of.

“In the chaos, the girl escaped, as did the monster, and she looked for a place she could hide. She wanted to be safe.”

“Okay, I'm starting to see where you think you might lose me.”

Rolling her eyes, Stevie picked up where she’d left off.

“She came across a boy named Mike, who took her in and hid her from the world, except for his friends, who he knew he could trust with his life. But the beast that got through found its way into the forest, and began to pick the people of Hawkins off, one by one.”

“Sounds a hell of a lot like some bullshit ghost story you tell camp kids around the fire”, Billy snarked, interrupting her again. She glared at him, then frowned.

“The first was Will Byers, who was dragged back to its nest in the place it had come from. He was smart, and small, and knew where he would be safe from the monster. The second was Barbara Holland, who wasn’t nearly so lucky.”

“I heard about Byers' kid brother”, Billy interjected, confused. “But I’ve never heard of a Barbara.”

Stevie shook her head, her eyes stinging and sore. She licked her lips, but found her mouth had gone dry. Her tongue rasped against her lips, sticking to the skin.

“They only ever recovered one body; a child's, found in the reservoir by the quarry. Jonathan and his mother identified the body as Will's, and planned a funeral”, she croaked, looking away. It was starting to snow again, and she let herself watch the drifts fall from the sky and stick to the window.

“Will Byers isn’t dead”, Billy said in a taunting voice, his nostrils flaring. He sounded like he was riling her up before a fight. She’d heard it from him when he talked smack at practice, and when they’d squared off that one night at the Byers' house. He tossed back his head and laughed, his earring catching the last of the light through the overcast.

“You’re getting sloppy, Queen Stevie. You forgot that I’ve seen him around. I’m pretty sure he’s even friends with those dorks who hang out with Maxine.”

Stevie's gaze sharpened, and her eyes narrowed. She could feel the beating of her heart and the calm in her head.

She lived in that black void she’d found when they’d been crammed into a closet together, with him demanding answers and her nowhere near ready to provide them. Stevie floated like an embryo in the womb in the cold, heavy dark, making herself a home.

She felt rage and fury, and then felt it all turn to ice.

“Barb was killed before the monster dragged her away to feed its young”, she said in a soft voice, her eyes fixed on his. “Her body was found, but due to the circumstances, had to be left behind.”

“She died in my backyard, by the pool. I found blood under my diving board when I went back to check, after everything went down last year.”

Her smile was humorless and bitter.

“She died because I told her to go home, because I didn’t want her there. I was more interested in getting laid than letting a girl drive herself home with a cut so bad on her hand that she probably could have used stitches.”

“Oh”, she laughed, the sound of it weak. “That’s what attracts them. The smell of blood.”

“Or really, meat. Just anything that screams 'wounded prey, please eat me' to a hunter so advanced that it doesn’t even have eyes or a nose to track you with—oh yeah, I forgot to mention, they have teeth for faces.”

Billy looked at her, dumbfounded.

“You’re fucking kidding me.”

“No—it kind of unfolds like a flower? And the edges have teeth, and so does the middle.”

She took a gulp of air. “Oh god, does the middle ever have so many fucking teeth.”

“You still haven’t explained how the fuck Will Byers is still kicking”, he cut in before she began to let the panic set in.

Blinking, she cleared her throat. “Right.”

“Chief Hopper didn’t buy the story they were telling when they claimed to have found Will's body at the bottom of Sattler's Quarry. Apparently they were doing some shady stuff with the autopsy and wouldn’t let anyone near the body after they identified him. So he did some digging and it turns out that the government has a research facility in town and they're using it for all kinds of weird experiments, something about a weapon against the Russians.”

“It doesn’t really matter in the whole scheme of things. All you need to know is that they knew what had happened to Will Byers, and they wanted to make it go away. So they made this super insanely good fake—I think it was kind of like a doll, I mean, it had stuffing—and dropped it in the reservoir to wash up somewhere.”

“Christ, when I think your story can’t any more fucking impossible, you have to go and throw a government conspiracy and a fucking doll of a dead kid so good it _fooled his family_ in there?”

“Hopper had to break in and cut the fucking thing open to see what they’d done”, she said flatly. Her glare dared him to interrupt again. “They planted bugs in the man's home and drugged him when he found his way into the research lab. It sounds like some schizo came up with it because it’s so out there that Buzz Aldrin told it to say hey.”

“But it still happened.” Her voice was firm, and her face shuttered.

“I don’t know why I’m still listening to you. You’re fucking insane”, he muttered, rubbing his temples with his eyes closed.

“_You_ wanted to know. _You _harassed me until I have in. _You_ remembered enough of when I told you the truth—which I _really _shouldn’t have done, thanks for reminding me of why that was a horrible _decision—and you still wanted to know!_”

“_This is the truth_”, Stevie hissed through her teeth, eyes burning. “Either shut up and listen till I'm finished and we might have enough time before lunch ends for me to show you proof, or drive me back to school now and you can just live with not knowing what really happened.”

It was tense, but after a moment, he nodded tersely, his jaw flexing. She sighed, slouched down again and got comfortable.

“So they buried the doll, but Jonathan and Joyce—his mom—had their doubts, especially after Hopper told them about what he figured out was going on.”

“I still don’t see where you are in all of this”, he interrupted, holding up his hands in surrender as she gave him a dirty look.

“My part in this involves me being an asshole. I freaked out when I found out Nancy and Jonathan were hanging out, because of some huge misunderstanding that involved pictures of me and Nancy getting changed but _anyways_”, she rushed out, hoping he'd hold back on—

“_What the hell?_”

No chance, then.

Billy was already mad, and looked like he was about to start shouting. Stevie was sitting right next to him, he was loud in a way that made her head hurt and she needed to be able to focus during English.

“I threw a party and a bunch of us jumped in the pool so Nancy and I went upstairs to get changed, and Jonathan was checking to woods around my house for signs of his brother and brought his camera, and well…”

“Still not a good excuse”, Billy ground out, staring dead ahead through the windshield, his hands flexing on the steering wheel and the knuckles turning white.

“Look, it’s just”, she took a stuttering breath. “This is already hard for me to talk about, and the party was the night that Barb died, and it-it's just that I have a lot of guilt about what happened and the way it did.”

He was silent, but his eyes flicked over to her again.

“I found out about the pictures and said some really bad stuff about Jonathan, and how his brother went missing and how creepy he always was. I-I tore up all of the pictures he’d taken that night, even the ones where he was looking for Will in the woods and trying to find signs of where he’d gone. I broke his camera and basically humiliated him in front of most of the senior year.”

She looked at her feet, hiding under a pair of brown leather hiking boots, insulated from the cold. She refused to cry again.

“_Anyways_, while I was busy being a raging bitch to everyone, Nancy and Jonathan teamed up to play Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys and figure out why her best friend and his brother went missing out of nowhere. Some stuff went down, I made some big life decisions and decided to go and apologize to Nance and Jon for treating them like trash.”

She breathed in.

“So I went to his house to go and start there, and I find out that they’re there together. I was so confused, and then I saw what the house looked like.”

Now, it seemed like Billy was hanging on her every word rather than looking for holes in her story to poke at. He looked like he was finally paying attention. Now, whether that was because he wanted to hear the truth behind all of the gossip about the Byers' house or because he was starting to believe her, she didn’t know.

All that mattered was that he was listening to her.

“They strung the whole thing out with lights. Everywhere you looked, it was table lamps, floor lamps, desk lamps, night lights, and so many goddamn Christmas lights—if I never see Christmas lights again I might be the happiest girl in the world—“, Stevie laughed deliriously, breathless and nervous all at once. “And they were all on, until suddenly, none of them were.”

“They started to flicker, jumping from one bulb to the one straight next to it, like a current was chasing through the room. They kept telling me to get out, that I shouldn’t be there. But then, I saw it, tearing through the wall and into our world. It was like a birth; violent and bloody, with screeching and pain.”

She winced as she recalled the thrashing horror of tearing between realities, and the terror that had emerged.

“I'll admit, I ran”, she let out, feeling a pang of disappointment when she saw the scorn in his features. “The first time I saw one of those things, I thought I was going to be sick. I actually was a bit, in my mouth, but it didn’t matter because all I knew in that moment was that if I didn’t leave, _I was going to die.”_

Stevie looked out of the window at the wood stretching out around them, the ground white and the branches bare in the first cold snap of the winter. Fall didn’t last long in Hawkins.

“And I when I turned back to the house as I got to my car, I saw the flashing lights and the flash of gunshots. And then, silence.”

She looked up at the overcast sky, looking through a squint at the anemic sun, pale and washed out in the grey light. 

“I knew what I had to do. So I hauled my ass back in there, picked up the bat that Jonathan had dropped and swung like I was hitting a home run out of Yankee Stadium.”

She laughed once more, cutting it short before it could bloom into something humorous.

“And would you believe it—it started bleeding. I managed to get a few more good shots in while Nancy and Jonathan recovered, and had me beat it back into the hall and out to a trap they’d rigged”, she recounted, thinking back to how its flesh had smelled when burning. It had been horrifying in that it smelled like any other cooking meat. Her stomach rolled when she thought of how it compared to barbecue.

“Next thing you know, Jon is hosing the thing down with kerosene while Nance holds it off with the last of her bullets, and I'm throwing my best lighter out to set this sucker on fire. I don’t think we killed it, but it ran back to the hole it crawled out of. Literally. Nancy and Jonathan went down there when they were looking for clues and it was _nasty_ with all this goo—Nance got a quick look on what was on the other side.”

Her nose wrinkled as she thought of how her friend had looked when she’d quietly broken down what the Upside Down had looked like.

Stevie knew that she couldn’t use the names the kids had given to all of the things emerging from this crack in the world, or she’d lose Billy right away. She knew he had a short attention span, and the second the told him that a group of tween nerds had named the monsters after creatures from Dungeons and Dragons, he'd kick her ass out of his car and drive back to school.

Instead, she settled for describing it briefly.

“She doesn’t like to talk about it much, but from what I’ve gathered, it’s a parallel to our world. It’s like—everything is there, like buildings, and roads and trees and stuff, but it’s just _wrong. _The people who’ve seen it, they say it’s very dark, and horribly cold. There’s no sun, and nothing there is alive except for _them. _Nothing really grows, and the air isn’t right.”

She shivered, rubbing her arms.

“But after we set the thing on fire, Nancy and Jonathan had to go and save her brother and his friends from the government goons they sent out to catch that little girl.”

“Right”, Billy said slowly, deliberately. “So the bad guys from Flashpoint are in small-town Indiana.”

Stevie rolled her eyes. “Get with the program, Hargrove. They run the weird lab by the edge of the town.”

He rolled his eyes and _ahhed_ sarcastically. His fingers tapped on the steering wheel.

“Joyce and Hopper went to the research facility to find the gateway into that other world and go save Will. They brought him back, and the monster set its sights on the school, where the kids, Jon and Nance, and the spooks were facing down.”

“Just like in a good old-fashioned Mexican Standoff”, Billy quipped, his eyes now staring at the snow that was now raining heavy on his windshield. It had begun to create a blanket over the glass, hiding them from the empty park outside.

Stevie ignored him, and kept on speaking.

“The girl managed to kill it after it took out most of the bad guys, but doing it kind of made her like…disappear?” she wrinkled her nose. “That’s how Dustin described it. Anyways, so everything was back to normal for awhile, barring the fact that there’s some crazy shit going down behind the scenes.”

“So this was all just last year?” he interjected, holding a hand up and twisting in his seat to face her. “When do we get to what happened _after _I moved to this… whatever the fuck kind of hellhole this is supposed to be.”

“I was getting to that”, she snapped. “And I resent that attack on my home town.”

“You don’t even have a mall here”, he muttered, rubbing his nose. Scowling, she shook her head and pressed on. She was determined to get this all wrapped up and done with by the time fifth period rang. She had work that night, and she needed to sleep when she got home if she wanted to be even close to functional the next morning to do it all again.

“Everything had gone back to normal looking in from the outside”, she explained, tucking her hair behind her ear. She felt his eyes on her, tracing the line of her neck.

“Until this Halloween, when Will Byers got possessed with an evil entity that infected him when he was trapped in another dimension. His friends and family were the first to notice, and then, everything went to hell.”

“All of the farmland around here went rancid, with the pumpkins and squash and shit rotting to pieces”, Stevie laughed when she caught the disgusted look on Billy’s face. “Yeah, it reeked. At one point, it felt like everywhere in town was downwind of those places. We Hicks take our squash season seriously.”

Her features smoothed out as she felt herself sigh deeply and decompress, dark settling over her thoughts like the snow on the hood of the car. She thought of how the pumpkins had burst under the tires of Billy's Camaro and under their feet as they’d trudged forward in the dark, tripping over rotten vines.

“Hopper found underground tunnels running through town, but things only really got weird when Dustin found a tadpole in his trashcan.”

“I’ve changed my mind”, he mumbled, hands on the wheel and his head leaning on them. “I’m the crazy one, sitting here, listening to you go on.”

“For fuck's sake, at this rate I'm going to miss fifth period! Let me finish!”

“Fine.”

“Dustin didn’t actually find a fucking tadpole, jackass. It was a baby monster. Like fresh from the egg. It ate his cat.”

Billy made a face, like he’d just swallowed a bug. Stevie nodded in agreement.

“So next thing I know, I'm being abducted from heading over to apologize to Nance, who has at this point left town with Jon, and they’re on their detective shit again, trying to get justice for Barbara Holland.”

“As for our baby Kermit, Dustin has me help him get it out of his house, and then we started laying a trap to get rid of it for good”, she said ominously, eyes hooded. She had drawn blood, as she recalled, dancing on the tips of her toes with energy and her bat heavy and confident in her grip.

“I told you how they like the smell of meat, right?”

Billy nodded.

“We got the idea to make a trail of sirloin down the old train tracks to the junkyard, where we met up with Lucas and Max.”

Billy grunted at that, giving her an odd look. “So you're telling me that Maxine is involved in this shit? That if I ask her about this, she knows what I’m talking about?”

Stevie nodded solemnly, wishing that it weren’t so.

The kid could hold her own for sure, but the situation certainly wasn’t ideal. If she had the choice, none of the kids would have ever gotten caught in the sights of both evil from another dimension and government agents trying to contain their mess.

But they were, so that was that.

Clearing her throat, she explained the plan, and the events leading up to their arrival at the Byers house.

“We led the trail to a pile of meat I poured gas all over, and found an abandoned bus to fortify and barricade. Once it got dark, we realized that it wouldn’t come out for some grocery store chuck, so I decided I would make decent bait, and headed out to draw it out with my bat.”

Growing bolder in her storytelling, she got to the part she knew would impress him the most. It was the part she wished she could tell reporters. She’d fucking bled for them, would have been so terrible to get a _little _recognition?

It wasn’t like she was asking for the key to the town, she reasoned.

Stevie just wanted to be thanked for what she’d done rather than strong-armed into signing away her rights and treated like a truant when she'd been trying to pick up the pieces. And you know, maybe get to meet Madonna.

But there she was, milking glory from the only person she could expect to give it, untainted by foreknowledge of her story's events. She wanted someone to look at her in awe again and not have it be because she’d just yanked them back from the cusp of danger and instead because she was telling a cool story about it.

“Next thing I know, there’s a dozen of those things, and they’re coming at me from everywhere. I managed to hit a few on my way back to the bus, but they started breaking down the doors. I almost jammed my bat down one's throat before they all left.”, she paused, taking a breath after her words got faster and faster as they emerged. “The thing inside of Will, it controls them, and it had called them back, because Hopper, Joyce and a few others broke into the Lab and went to go rescue Will from the government spooks.”

“Then, we headed to the Byers house after we ran into Nancy and Jonathan”, she winced as his fists clenched again but he didn’t say a word. “They figured out they could interrogate the evil thing inside of Will. They managed to make the room they did it unrecognizable, so the thing couldn’t send its monsters to stop them, and were actually pretty successful. Until the phone rang.”

“What’s so bad about that?”

She bit her lip. “Will recognized it right away, which meant so did the thing inside him.”

Rubbing her arms, she blinked, feeling her eyes tired and heavy.

“So while this was going down, I was in the house with the kids and Nance. Next thing we all knew, Hopper was inside and telling us to gear up, and that we're about to be drowning in monsters with no faces but too many teeth.”

Stevie shuddered.

“Until _she _came.” Her voice changed when she mentioned her, going from sensational to flat-out reverential. Because if anyone deserved respect, it was _her. _

“Her name is El, short for Eleven. The only name she’d ever known, growing up alone and scared in a sterile room so far from sunlight that she’d never seen anything but grey. She’s the girl who destroyed the monster.”

“Turns out she never died, just escaped to the woods and got taken in by the Chief. He hid her in this cabin in the middle of nowhere, and had decided that it wasn’t safe for her to let anyone know she was still alive.”

She took a breath, ignoring the hunger that gnawed at her insides. She hadn’t had time for breakfast and she was skipping lunch to do this. Maybe she’d order in Chinese before her shift, she considered.

“Anyways, so El comes in and absolutely _trashes _these things. They actually started running scared. So of course, now the kids are all freaking out because their friend's not dead, and Hopper's just relieved that she came home because she'd run away at some point to look for her birth mother.”

Clearing her throat, she wished she’d thought ahead and brought a water bottle. Talking for this long always sucked the moisture from her mouth, and though she was almost at the end of her take, she was also at the end of her rope.

“But then they split us up into three groups; one heading to the Lab to close the door for good, because El is the only one who can do it, another sweating the thing out of Will before they close the door to keep him from dying with the monsters, and me and the kids.”

Pausing for effect, she finally looked over at him.

“And that’s when you come into the picture. You know what happened from there.”

“Yeah, you fucking drugged me.” His tone was bitter, and his eyes were cold when she looked into them, as if daring her to defend herself.

“Asshole, you were throwing plates at me! You were ready to beat my face in! You give me shit about the whole thing with Nancy and you do it without me even provoking you to!”

“Without you provoking me? _You punched me in the face, Stevie!” _His cheeks were going red as he began to yell, his hair whipping around him as he shook his head. He was gripping the steering wheel so hard that she heard it creak, but gave it no mind because she was angrier.

“_You were strangling a child, Billy!_”

Her voice broke at the end, pleading him to examine himself and find something redeeming. There had to be something _good_ to make this hurt feel worth it in the end, right?

He stopped, and his face fell into a frown. He looked like he was thinking, running a thought over and over in his head until he could feel the texture of it. The way she did about those _things_.

“In between, we took your car and went into the tunnels to burn the thing from the inside. It had all of these vines running through them, and it made the inside a lot like what I’ve heard the world they come from is like.”

She tried to suppress the cold air that felt like it had just washed over her, tripping goosebumps on her skin. If she didn’t think about it, it wasn’t real.

“We went down inside and torched the whole thing. And then El closed the door and locked the monsters out from their connection to their world, which killed what was left of them. Will Byers was successfully exorcised and everything went back to normal.”

“No, it didn’t.” He was shaking his head. His mouth was set in a grim line. “You almost have a panic attack every time we talk about any of this shit, baby. You're shaking.”

She glanced down and saw her hands trembling so hard that they’d have broken a 5.1 on the Richter scale. She tried to calm the shaking, but even sitting on them, she could still feel them practically vibrate beneath her thighs. Digging them back out again, she tried to ignore the sensation.

“Look, I don’t know if any of this is real, but whatever the fuck happened, you’re still living it.”

He was handling her with such care that it made her heart hurt for a moment, to think that he was capable of such kindness but chose to act like the world's biggest asshole. That that was a consistent choice for him that he forever made wrong.

That, or she could consider that he’d been deliberately choosing to be kind to her, right then and there.

Her face softened, her fingers going slack. “That obvious, huh?”

“Baby, you’re a fucking hot mess.”

“I know”, she said in a small voice. “But I’m trying.”

His hand crept over to where hers now rested on the center console, and covered it, dragging warmth back into her bones. She sighed, watching how his hand swallowed her own, how safe she felt from the woods in here, with him, for now. It astounded her, how he could rile her up without a word but was still capable of moments like these.

She felt like she would never understand Billy Hargrove.

“Now, you said you had proof?”

Checking the time, she sighed in relief. Twenty minutes left.

The conversation had felt like it had taken much longer. It had taken so much out of her, she was surprised she hadn’t just blown away on the breeze. 

Enough to swing by her place and still get to class on time.

“Drive to my place. We need to go to my basement.”

“Jesus, you’re not helping convince me you’re not just some psycho serial killer”, he muttered, putting the keys back in the ignition and turning on the engine. Stevie laughed a bit at that.

“Want me to go get my bat?”

Once they parked and got out and into the house, she led him down the steps to her basement. The bottom level was mostly just concrete, with the cellar, the furnace, a crawlspace for storage and the room she worked out in most of the time, which was the main floor space when they got down the stairs.

Billy gave the pile of half-shredded tires a bit of an odd look, but didn’t say anything until she led him to the meat freezer in the furnace room.

“My parents are never home, but even when they are, they’re never down here”, she mentioned off-handedly as she flipped on the lights. “They think it’s musty. So I figured it would be the safest place for what Dustin trusted me to hide.”

Opening the freezer, its light flicked on and there, nestled in spiky ice formations and frozen corn, was the demo-dog that El had put down.

“_Holy fucking shit!_”

“Don’t worry”, Stevie said in a casual tone, shifting a paw over so he could see better. “It’s been real proper dead for a week now, so you can do whatever you have to do to decide whether or not you want to believe me.”

He stood there, three steps away and gawking like it was about to lunge over and rip his throat out. He looked like he still couldn’t believe what was in front of him. Cautiously, he slowly made his way over, patting through his pocket and retrieving a flat, slim black object.

Flicking it open with his wrist, the switchblade gleamed blue in the light shining under the corpse in her basement freezer. Watching wordlessly, she saw him plunge the knife into the beast and tear down, parting dead flesh and allowing some heavy black blood to shine against the metal.

“What exactly are you—”

“You said that they made that really good doll of Will Byers, right?” he interrupted her, voice harsh and still focused on the task ahead. He made another cut, sawing sideways and grimacing as the motion created squelching sounds.

“Just doing my due diligence.”

As he formed a square, he peeled back the skin to reveal muscle fibers and connective tissue tinged in grey to match the blood and viscera. Squinting down, he prodded at the mess with a finger before stepping back, features arranged oddly, like something he’d eaten wasn’t sitting well in his stomach.

“That…” he had gone a bit pale. Worrying his bottom lip between his teeth and squishing the tar over his index with his middle finger. “That’s uh… I guess they don’t make dolls in size fucking _impossible.”_

“Yeah”, she admitted, handing him a rag. “I would have rather it were a doll, too.”

Wiping off the blade, he eyed the body again, and poked it again.

“Why did you do that again?” she asked, disgusted. “I thought we already established that this was a true-blue monster, here.”

“Sorry”, he mumbled, still staring at it. “I just… I can’t wrap my head around this shit.”

Stepping over once more, she watched him stab into the joint of one of its feet and try to tear through the cartilage and wriggle the knife to sever it. He kept on repeating the motion as if it would bring him any closer to his goal, swearing whenever he was unsuccessful.

“What are you even doing?”

“I want proof that I haven’t lost my goddamn mind”, Billy growled, stabbing down again. “When I wake up in the middle of the night and question my sanity, I want to have a fucking answer. I want to know for sure what it is I saw here.”

_This is a bad idea_, she told herself. _Also Dustin's gonna be mad that the specimen got damaged. _

But she understood him when he said that.

Some nights, she would stumble over to the freezer before she started in on the tires, staring for minutes on end at the beast that grew into the stuff of nightmares. Hell, this shit alone was enough to fuel her dreams for the next god knew how long.

But at least she knew it was all real. She had that guarantee that the monsters and little girls who could move mountains with their minds were real. She knew that she hadn’t gone off the deep end when she thought of government conspiracies.

Billy didn’t have that.

She’d condemned him to an existence of knowing but never _knowing_.

Swallowing past the mass in her throat, she coughed. “That’ll never work, not with that.”

Scowling at her, he moved away reluctantly, wiping his switchblade clean once more and stowing it in his back pocket. He looked lost, and it hurt her head to know that she’d done that. _Her. _

“I have an axe in the garage that should do the trick. Hang on, I'll go get it.”

][][][][][][][][][][

**Friday November 17th, 1984**

Stevie came home to Angie pacing in the kitchen.

Her lip curled when she took in the sight of her, with dark circles under her eyes and shaking hands. “Oh good. I’ve finally managed to catch you when you’re awake and not wasting away the day.”

Stevie said nothing, just held her breath and held her head high.

Angie didn’t need to know that she had a job now, and although it was blue collar work and an uncommon shift that her parents would surely disapprove of, it was her little secret.

She hadn’t said anything when she’d spent Tuesday night with Nancy and Jonathan, revising for end of term exams. She hadn’t said anything when she'd had Billy come and get her off a few times on Wednesday after she’d sat in the bleachers and seen him beat his previous best time against her with a smirk on his face.

She put those lips to better use afterwards, kneeling over his face until he’d tongued her so hard that her thighs shook, and she’d lost count of how many times she’d come.

He’d relished in her anger, growling when she raked her nails down his back and ass hard enough to leave welts and even draw blood in some places. He’d swallowed her rage as she'd spat curses about how he dared to try and beat her at this, how _dare he be better than her_?

Instead of answering, he just got down on his knees again and again. For every time she showed her frustration at her suspension and the part he’d played in it, he made her a twitching, sticky mess with nothing more than his mouth and his fingers.

By the time they'd progressed to the main event, she'd practically been limp from the energy she'd already expended on orgasms. Barely holding on for dear life, he'd hammered her deep into the mattress; face-down and with his fist tangled behind her neck.

“’s not f-f-fair”, she let out in a garbled mess, shaking with every thrust as he kept pounding into her.

“Hey, baby girl, you're the one who _begged me_ to—and I quote— 'fuck me until I can’t think about this shit anymore'”, he crooned into her ear, yanking back on her hair. Stevie moaned and clenched around him. “I’m just here, happily obliging.”

She whined, grinding back on him. She could feel how wet she was by the way their skin stuck together. Billy smacked her across the ass.

“_Fuck_”, she shrieked, bucking as she felt her release close.

“Besides”, he breathed, mouthing at the juncture between her jaw and her neck. “Who am I to refuse such a kind request from such a pretty girl?”

And then he bit her quickly, just enough to really feel it, and then reached between her legs and rubbed at her clit.

Keening, her back arched, and Stevie came again.

Afterwards, once they’d thrown away the condom and wiped away the mess, she'd rolled over and pulled an old biscuit tin out from under her bed and retrieved the items from inside.

Carefully, using a Bic pen and a bobby pin, she managed to roll a little joint. Tearing off a corner of the rolling paper packaging, she'd stuffed it inside and burned off the hat after twisting it off. Finally, she exhaled, and lit the joint, stowing the rest of the things back inside the tin.

Leaning back, she’d taken a toke, and another, then passed it over to Billy.

They’d laid back in comfortable silence, before Billy cleared his throat awkwardly.

“You know, they open the pool at six am most days.”

“And what exactly does that mean?” her tone was defensive. Although she’d burned off the worst of her rage, there was still something manic and twitching inside of her, putting her on edge.

“It means that you can still keep up with training, even if you’re not allowed in the water during practice and meets”, he continued, raising a brow and taking a bit and blowing it out of his nose. “Maybe work off a bit of this shitty attitude you’ve got going on.”

“’Shitty attitude'? _‘Shitty attitude?’_”, she screeched, twisting over to glare at him. “Where the Hell do you get off with that bullshit?”

Rolling his eyes, he avoided her swipe at the joint and leaned back again, staring up at the ceiling and inhaling deeply. The cherry burned bright in the dim lighting of her room, reduced to the small lamp on her vanity.

“I got you off _how many times exactly_?” he asked, turning to face her, smoke spilling out as he spoke. “And you’re still ready to claw my face off at a second's notice.”

“That might just be you, asshole!”

Billy gave her a sleazy grin. “That’s just part of my charm, baby.”

Stevie had kicked him out after that, shoving him physically out the front door as he was just as unhelpful as possible and laughing the whole way. After she’d locked the door and slumped to the ground against it, hands twisted up in her hair and elbows on her knees, she'd laughed too, hysterically.

She couldn’t quite believe what her life had become.

“Are you even paying attention to me?” Angie shouted, waving her hands frantically in front of her face. Stevie blinked and nodded, swallowing.

She hadn’t even realized how lost in thought she’d been.

“Stephanie, you are going to listen to me, because I'm telling you how this is going to happen, and you’re going to do exactly what I say, _claro?_”

Angie's voice was sharp, and her calling her by her full name was _never _a good thing. It usually ended in her getting frozen out for weeks, and left to feed herself without any home cooking. She could manage the basic, direct instructions dictated to her by a recipe when at work, where it only involves the exactitude of baking.

It was easy to follow; do exactly what they tell you and you’ll get exactly the result you expect. It was that simple. So Stevie could make cakes and cookies and bread all day long and still get no closer to managing to cook a steak, or make anything on the stovetop that required any more skill than scrambled eggs, which she regularly spilled onto the burner and set off the smoke detector making.

That being said, Angie could make life very, very difficult for Stevie.

So knowing this, and acknowledging all of the shit she’d pulled in the last few weeks, she knew to pick her battles. She’d always known she’d have to face the music sooner than later.

“Claro”, she mumbled back, avoiding her searching stare. She was in her wool socks, having kicked off her boots by the front door so she wouldn’t track snow inside. They’d been soaked through because she'd done so standing on the carpet, soaking in the melting slush from Angie's own boots.

She should have known better than to keep walking past the threshold.

A sign from the universe, she told herself, and you _ignored it. _

_Idiot. _

“You're going to sit here at the table and I’m going to call your parents. You're going to listen to them speak, and you’re going to agree to their punishment, whatever it is, because I _will _be enforcing it.”

_Idiot_, she repeated to herself and nodding to Angie.

“_Good,_”

She pulled out a chair, and motioned her to it. Woodenly, Stevie sat down on its edge, gripping the seat like her life depended on not flying off the handle.

Sighing, Angie muttered a quick _necessito cigarro_, rubbing her eyes and picking up the phone to dial her parents, while Stevie fell further and further back into her chair. She drew up her knees defensively and tucked her feet under herself, wrapping her arms around that whole mess.

She felt like lead tied to a man tossed into the sea.

Swallowing her salt, she sat silently and waited for it to be over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so double-post time!  
This and chapter twelve were originally going to be the same chapter, but it got so out of hand that it ended up being almost forty pages...  
I just felt like you guys deserved more than just a summary chapter where Billy basically has seasons one and two broken down for him, especially since we're all in the know.  
So please enjoy, and thank you once again for all of the support <3


	12. It's Only Teenage Wasteland

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Party at Stevie's tonight; B.Y.O.B.  
You break it, you buy it.   
(That includes the host.)

**Saturday, November 18th, 1984**

Since he’d pulled up at Hawkins High, Billy had heard a lot about these parties, but wasn’t sure when he’d ever get to see one.

Pulling up the long drive, he took a turn off towards the backyard, following the pavement that ran along one side of the house and parked away from the maple he knew the mourning doves sat in. The last time, he’d had to scrape bird shit off the roof of his car and both of his side view mirrors.

He checked his hair and straightened the collar of his prized patch jacket, which he’d fished out in honor of the occasion. He couldn’t be showing up to Stevie Harrington's party looking anything less than his best if he wanted to leave with any dignity at all.

Billy was willing to bet that she’d take another shot at his hair, or at his smoking habit—as if hers was that much better.

It was still early hours for a Saturday night, barely half past nine, but the kitchen was already full of people that he had to wade through to find his way over to Tommy, who was holding Bryce Lowell's flask over his head.

“Guess I'm just gonna have to drink the whole thing to myself”, he taunted, taking another deep swig as Lowell tried to swipe it back, cursing when Tommy managed to hold onto it.

“Hey man”, Harry Matthews greeted, raising his can and nodding as Billy reached over and pulled a bottle of Canadian Club from the counter and snagged a plastic cup from the tower someone had left beside a six pack of Miller Lite.

He spent the next hour fucking around with the guys from the team, playing dumb drinking games and talking shit. Carol stopped by at one point to give Tommy a grope and lead him off to a bathroom somewhere, the pair returning twenty minutes later with messy hair.

Fine for a quickie, he conceded, but pretty sad if it was the only performance tonight. To be entirely fair, Carol had emerged walking a little more crooked and a little more flushed pink.

Instead of being crass and pointing it out, he just gave Tommy a look and passed him a smoke.

People suddenly began to filter outside, the cold air seeping in as everyone rushed into the backyard. Frowning, he watched Tommy, Lowell and Matthews join the tide, sweeping outside without jackets to freeze their nuts off like the rest of the idiots.

And then, he heard shouting, and decided that maybe whatever was going on might just be worth his attention after all. He still hadn’t managed to find any chicks worth taking out to his car, and Stevie was still M.I.A., so he figured, _what the hell?_

Elbowing his way past the jerks who played lacrosse, he managed to find a spot near the front of the crowd, which faced the house. He was still confused what the fuck was worth going outside in t-shirts, until he looked up.

She was standing on the ledge of a large, open window, barefoot and holding on to the wood of the frame for dear life.

Stevie did always know how to make an entrance. 

“What the fuck is all this about, then?”

His voice was hoarse, but not from shouting or smoking. He didn’t know why he kept doing this.

He’d fucked her a few times, but she had way too much crap going on to add to the shit sandwich already on his plate. And then she’d had to go and tell him all of that insane sci-fi horror conspiracy theory stuff and then showed him proof that it could all be real.

He still had the leg in the trunk of his car, stashed under the spare tire.

He checked it, every night before heading to bed, to convince himself that he wasn’t crazy for letting those stories Stevie Harrington had let slip into his head do it to his dreams, too. Billy almost thought he could imagine what they looked like, what they moved like.

He felt like he knew what they sounded like when they were hunting.

He’d been hearing sounds from his window, off from the woods.

Billy was half convinced that the story Stevie had told him had planted seeds in the folds of his brain, burrowing deep into soft pink flesh and wriggling just often enough to make him believe that the sounds of the forest were _monsters from another dimension. _

And here she was, drunk and ready to jump off her roof and into the murky water of her pool. It had turned greenish already, and there were a few leaves floating across the top. The water had also been partially drained. It prevented the paint from cracking, Lowell had explained to him as they’d spent their P.E. period re-chlorinating the pool after a freshman had admitted to taking a leak rather than going to find the bathroom. He’d broken down the necessities of winter prep on an outdoor pool after Billy had asked why drained water had anything to do with damage done to the lining.

The large of it was the Indiana winters were a bitch and a half to contend with.

But either way, Stevie Harrington was acting like a fucking idiot.

It wasn’t fair, he decided as he watched her stumble, giggling, into the wall. She’d gone and opened the door and now she wasn’t here to help him force it closed again so he could enjoy his Friday night like a normal fucking eighteen-year-old kid.

“Who wants to see me do a backflip?” she crowed to the crowd gathered around her yard and spilling into the kitchen below. They cheered back, raising cheap cans of Bud and red Solo cups of jungle juice to toast to her victory.

Fucking sheep.

This is how you get the cops called and end up with parties that have a body count, Billy thought to himself. Dumbass rednecks and their keggers.

As much as he’d gladly take any booze thrown his way, he missed bonfires on the beach, where a bunch of them would get together and chip in their pocket change for a pack of hot dogs and some corner store buns and chips. Or most of all, how in California, nobody handed out invitations to their parties; just planted the seeds by word of mouth and let their party grow organically.

There was none of this pick and choose paper flyer bullshit on the beach. Just people, and enough liquor to keep everyone happy.

“Do it!” shouted Matthews, hands cupped around his mouth. “C’mon, Harrington, don’t be a pussy!”

“She doesn’t have it in her”, Tommy cut in, nursing his beer. “She doesn’t have the guts.”

“Fuck you, I don’t!” she called back, throwing him a middle finger.

She’d do it.

He knew she would.

But to the trained eye, Stevie looked a lot more unsure than she let on, swaying in place in a tiny pink dress whose sleeves he couldn’t decide whether belonged on her shoulders or off them. Her left arm was covered in silver bangles that jingled as she held up her bottle of gin to take another swig.

Billy winced. Gin tasted like ass.

And Stevie’s was practically hanging out of her skirt, Jesus.

If this hadn’t been taking place in front of what seemed to be all of Hawkins High, he would’ve sat back and taken in the view, shouting dirty jokes about how she was putting on a show. But this…

It wasn’t so much that he gave a shit if other guys got to see what she had to offer. It wasn’t like she was shy, and from what he’d heard, more than a few had seen. She was also known for walking around the girls' locker room in the nude. Heather Lockwood had told him after practice a few weeks before, giggling when she did.

But this was pathetic.

It was like watching a deer shot in the stomach struggle for breath while a hunter stood on, unmoving and watching closely to see it dying slowly. It was hard to look at.

Stevie Harrington was falling apart, and all everyone would do was cheer her on.

Like watching a train crash, Billy thought, his lip curling. Like how the metal screeched at an ungodly pitch until it was over, cars driving through each other until they crumpled, the way he would crush cans of beer against his head when he was trying to impress his boys. He could see her, burning bright as a wreck, twisted and broken but commanding everyone’s attention.

Even now, at her lowest.

“Hey, no—Stevie! Stop it!”

It was Nancy Wheeler's turn to play the adult, wrenching the bottle from her friend's hands and trying to turn her around from the window she leaned out of. Stevie laughed, twisting out of her arms and aiming to run back at the window, to jump—

Until Jonathan Byers caught her around the waist as her bare feet left solid ground and reached out into the night. She was caught over the edge and hanging, arms and legs dangling, over Byers' scrawny arm.

For a second, the breath caught in Billy's throat.

He didn’t know if he doubted the guy's strength or whether Stevie would try something stupid _again_, but the sight of it made the bottom of his stomach drop out from under him.

It looked _wrong_, seeing her like that. He’d never seen her look so helpless, and it brought bile to the back of his throat.

He thought he’d seen the worst of her. He’d seen her crying, _endlessly crying_, Christ, did chicks ever fucking cry—he’d seen her angry and violent, he’d seen her vicious and manipulative and cruel, he’d seen her exhausted and so panicked she couldn’t breathe. He’d watched her throw up, bleed, seen her humiliated by her own family and had even held her at her most vulnerable.

But this was wrong.

Byers pulled her inside, and Nancy came over to the window and sneered out at the crowd below. She looked ready to throw something.

“Show’s over, assholes! Go home!”

The crowd muttered, and a few boos were thrown out. Wheeler stared them all down, eyes narrowed.

“I said go home right fucking now or I'm calling the cops!”

People began to mill out, snagging the last of the booze and the basketball team hauling the keg out with them. A good portion lingered, mostly the rowdier partiers who were still hoping to draw the night out. But Nancy Wheeler was not taking any shit tonight, apparently.

“For God’s sake, do I have to dial the number in front of you?” she shouted, waving her arms. “Fuck off out of here!”

“Hey Wheeler!” Tommy called, cracking open a new beer. “I bet you don’t have the balls!”

“If you wanna play that game, then fine!” Wheeler stomped off, returning a moment later with a cordless and punching in some numbers with her thumb.

“You’re going to have to be the one to explain to Chief Hopper why he’s evicting trespassers on his night off!”

Holding up the phone to her right ear, she started to speak to the person on the other end. Tommy and the others let out another round of jeers and then reluctantly and slowly started to clear out. From where he stood, Billy could pick out some of the words Nancy was muttering into the receiver.

Something about a 'Mike' and a 'Hop', which he assumed to be Hopper, and at the end, he faintly heard a word that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

The word, said oh-so-softly by junior valedictorian Nancy Wheeler, head of the Mathletes and if Stevie was to be believed, amateur investigative reporter, was a small one.

‘Gun’, she had said. ‘Bring your gun.’

Billy didn’t know if that meant they were expecting a fight, or if something else was going on, but his heart began to pound and he remembered the monster's paw that he had under his emergency tire, slowly drying out under a plastic tarp.

He needed to know.

The thought was in his head and he _needed to know_.

Burrowing, he remembered, past the blood and white flesh and into the brain below. Like a cancer, insidious and curling deep tendrils into his core. He felt it, pulsating like it had a heartbeat.

_He needed to know. _

Pushing his way through the last of the crowd, Billy stumbled over people to get to the stairs, and finally, up them and to where he guessed they’d be. Third door to the right, past the bathroom and after the linen closet. Stevie's room.

The door was closed, but light shine from under it, and he could make out movement. Biting his tongue, he knocked.

“Who the hell—who is it?”

Wheeler clearly wasn’t any less on edge. A great sign.

Fuck.

“It’s me”, he said, clearing his throat. “Stevie, are you in there?”

He heard rustling from inside, and the sound of bare feet. “Is that Hargr—Stevie, get back here!”

The door opened, and there she was, eyeliner smudged dark and wild, hair a mess. She gave him an uneven grin, and beckoned him inside, closing the door as he did. As he brushed past her, he could smell smoke and perfume, thick and floral and sweet. It stuck in his nose, and he could still smell it even after she moved away.

“What do you want, Billy?”

Byers had decided to speak up, having put down the glass of water he’d been holding, presumably trying to get Stevie to drink. He looked guarded, but didn’t seem outwardly confrontational.

At least this time, he wasn’t crying, Billy thought, turning back to Stevie.

“D’you want to explain what exactly is going on?”

Stevie laughed and shook her head, allowing Nancy to take her by the hand and sit her down on her bed. “Had a bad day. Decided t'make it better.”

“Apparently, 'better' involves most of a bottle of gin”, Wheeler muttered, passing her the water and smoothing her hair away from her face. “Drink up.”

“Why did you ask the Sheriff to bring his gun?”

He'd directed this one at Nancy, who looked confused and out the glass back down after she was satisfied Stevie had had enough. “Because he’s one guy and there were like fifty people there? I called his personal number—he really does have the weekend off, he’s coming as a personal favor to me.”

A weight felt like it had been lifted from Billy's chest and he could breathe again.

But then he considered the fact that he still had no clue what the fuck was going on. He felt like that constantly around Stevie, he realized. He didn’t like it.

“What happened, Stevie?”

She was staring distractedly at Wheeler, but then snapped her gaze over to him, her eyes growing sharper. “Wha?”

“I said”, Billy said slowly, walking over until he stood over her. Then, he dropped down to a crouch, so he could meet her eye to eye. “what happened, baby?”

She tried to look away, but her bottom lip started quivering. _Fuck. _

_More crying_. But he knew he could deal. God only knew he’d dealt with all of Maxine's worst boo-boos and tantrums when she’d been younger. It was just getting a bit repetitive was all, he thought.

She shook her head, but he wasn’t having any of that. She was going to tell him what was wrong.

“My parents called'n they said I was gonna be punished”, she started, her voice small and stumbling. “So I'm cut off.”

Was she being serious?

Billy rocked back on his heels and started to laugh. Winding his hands behind his head, he laced his fingers and let out a sigh. He felt let down, to think that someone like Stevie Harrington, who had not only surpassed his expectations of being easy and a good fuck, but who seemed to have a new surprise to throw his way at every turn, was so fucking predictable.

Tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme, he thought to himself. Rich girls and daddy’s money.

To think that she’d gone and thrown a party as an act of petty rebellion against her parents, likely using _their money _to do so, was just pathetic. And to cause a scene for attention, to act out to get someone else's, he’d always seen as something done by weak people.

He felt almost disappointed that someone who had worked her way so frustratingly under his skin would be just like every other spoiled kid. She carried around a bat with fucking nails in it, for Christ’s sake. How in the world that translated to still being dependent on her parents for everything, he couldn’t fathom.

“I'm sure you’ll do just fine without your allowance, baby”, he finally said, moving his hair out of his eyes. He needed a trim. Maybe he’d visit the barber tomorrow, he considered. At least, for now it kept her from seeing how often he was rolling his eyes.

“I don’ give a fuck about the money”, she said back, her speech a bit clearer. She looked over at Byers pleadingly, and he put his hands up in surrender.

“I can’t do this for you, Stevie. You need to use your words.”

Groaning, she buried her head in her hands. She mumbled something, as Byers repeated himself, before she finally got frustrated.

“They took my car keys!”

Fuck, that was something he needed to remember in the future. Clearly, Byers knew how to get Stevie Harrington to make sense. He’d have to take notes.

“Okay”, Billy started, trying to summon any bit of empathy for what still seemed like a problem with a very simple solution. He hated people who weren’t capable of thinking for themselves. “Then take the bus.”

“That’s not a—I won’t be able _to—it doesn’t work like that!_” Stevie wailed, throwing herself backwards onto the bed. “_You don’t understand!_”

“Then explain it to me, Stevie”, he responded, sighing. He was starting to wonder why he’d bothered asking past the point of establishing that interdimensional predator monsters weren’t about to ravage the town. Actually, no, he definitely should have left this bag of cats undisturbed.

Taking a deep breath, she sat back up again. At this point, Billy was tired of hovering on the balls of his feet, so he just slunk to the floor below, sitting on the cream shag rug beside her. He resigned himself to crossing his legs under him and looking up at her as she spoke.

“I got myself a job last week, an-and it has odd hours”, she explained slowly, her fingers picking at the hem of her dress. “I work night shifts from two till ‘bout eight during th'week. ’s at a bakery not far from my house.”

“It's-it's jus' that this is a chance t'make better choices”, she continued, pausing. “An-And I wanna be my own person, y'know? And make those sh-choices and be acc-accountable t'me.”

Well, that was not at all what he’d been expecting.

It felt like getting the wind knocked out of him whenever Stevie Harrington surprised him.

Somehow, the feeling never got old.

“Problem is that even if it only takes me twenty minutes t’walk there from my place, it would take me almost forty-five minutes t’get t’school from there…”

“…and homeroom starts at eight-thirty”, Billy finished, finally understanding. “And with a car, it would’ve been doable, but without…”

“An’the bus passes at eight sharp”, Stevie added, frowning. “So no bus, either.”

“That really sucks”, he admitted, considering the consequences of not having wheels. It had taken him over an hour and a half to find his way to her house last weekend, and that had been after he’d called Tommy from a payphone near the gas station where he’d stolen a bottle of whiskey when the clerk went for his smoke break.

“Wait—you got a job?” Wheeler cut in, looking confused. “Why’s this the first I’m hearing about it?”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Byers asked, arms crossed. “We talked about this at the service—we don’t keep secrets anymore, Stevie.”

And that was when Billy remembered that he didn’t like Jonathan Byers.

Not only did he play some role in fucking up her face, but apparently he’d even crept around her yard and taken pictures of her and Wheeler getting changed—which, granted, had Billy been there at that moment in time, he would’ve sit back and taken in the show—but to _take pictures_?

Not only was it sloppy, because it created evidence, but it was a real dirtbag move.

He didn’t like the idea of 'no secrets' with Jonathan Byers.

Billy looked up at him, and then over at Stevie. The job was news to him, too, but it seemed like he was still at a disadvantage here. “What the hell is this about, huh?”

Byers went pale, and Wheeler made a sound like a wounded animal, already hovering over him like he was going to collapse. Stevie snuffled, like she always did when she was on the verge of tears.

Christ, he needed to stop thinking about this shit so much.

Stevie Harrington was just a friend with benefits. Barely a friend, even.

Okay, they were hate-fucking.

That was part of what made it so good, he knew. He’d never made it out to be anything different.

But then she was always there and always on the verge of another fucking meltdown, and she got clingy when she got emotional in a touchy-feely kind of way so it all worked out.

If anything, it was nice to not be the one always about to explode at a moment's notice.

He could see it now, when he stepped back from his actions and examined their fallout. Because that was what it had become; fallout, like he was a missile aimed straight at the same recliner Neil sat at, drinking one warm Bud after another until the six pack was finished and he would yell for Billy to go get another before the gas station closed.

Because that was where it had him headed. Just like him.

He’d been sick, when he’d thought of what his mother would say about how he’d acted that night.

The thought of it made him so uncomfortable that he decided he’d rather pry into Byers' apparent discomfort than examine it further.

“Would anyone like to explain why the fuck all of you were at church together or am I to understand that you’re all just bible-thumpers?”

_Subtle_, he scoffed to himself. _Discreet. _

“We were at a funeral, you dick”, Wheeler got out, shooting him a withering look. “For Jon's mom’s boyfriend.”

Well, now didn’t he look like the asshole.

_What else is new?_

“I told you.”

Her voice was quiet, but his attention immediately snapped back to Stevie as she spoke. She had stopped fidgeting, and was instead staring down at her hands, splayed wide open on her lap.

“People died over this.”

_They got him_, was what she didn’t say. _They got him and they tore him to pieces. _

She didn’t need to say it. He could practically read it in her eyes.

“What are you talking about Stevie?” Wheeler exclaimed, bulldozing over him as her eyes grew wide and manic as she seemed realize them implications of what had been said. “What does he know?”

_“What did you tell him?_”

She was trying to walk over, but Byers kept holding her back, wrapped up in his arms as he tried to distract and cajole her. He hadn’t registered what she had let on. He couldn’t have.

_Up to my neck in NDAs_, he remembered faintly. _Dangerous, don’t tell anyone I told you. _

_I shouldn’t have told you. _

Her words were back to haunt her. But he would go down with her, he realized, if they found out he knew. Nancy Wheeler looked like she would do anything to keep that secret.

“I don’t know what she’s talking about”, he denied, watching as Stevie’s hand crept up to dig her nails into the side of her right thigh, like she always did when she was on the edge of losing her shit. “She’s drunk. She wanted to jump out the window like half an hour ago, I don’t know what to tell you there.”

“Actually, you should drink some more water”, he added, looking at her pointedly. If she was drinking water, she wasn’t going to be talking about shit that was going to get them hounded by Nancy Wheeler and Jonathan Byers and if Stevie was to be believed, the government and everyone else in the goddamn world.

“I'm sorry, Stevie”, Nancy apologized, taking a deep breath. It seemed to ground her, and she was able to paste on a condoling smile. “That sucks about your new job.’

Stevie looked down at her feet and shrugged, but refused to make eye contact. Her hand still clutched at her skin. “Does suck. Was gonna do all sorts of stuff, but now m'gonna have to quit.”

“No, you don’t.”

He barely even realized he’d opened his mouth before he said it, but as he spoke, he knew what he was offering. He knew what it implied and what it didn’t, but he knew that he didn’t know where that left him.

Looking like a fucking douche, he imagined.

“I'll pick you up on my way in to school”, he offered, cursing himself as he did. Billy knew what he was doing, and he didn’t like it.

He was finding an excuse to become a more permanent fixture in Stevie Harrington's life.

Stevie Harrington, who, at that very moment, looked absolutely speechless.

“Huh”, Wheeler stepped back, wide-eyed. “I guess you are capable of basic human decency after all.”

“Oh, I'm capable of all that and more, sweetheart”, he smirked, watching as she rolled her eyes in disgust and leaning back on his elbows.

Byers stepped over, frowning and hesitantly going for the door.

“Wait—I think I hear—”

They all quieted and strained their ears and then a heavy, pounding knock echoed through the house. It was insistent, and followed immediately by the vaguely familiar sound of a man's voice saying very familiar words.

“_Police! Open up!”_

As soon as they heard that, the others all seemed to decompress, their shoulders unwinding and their jaws unclenching. Stevie stumbled to her feet, seeming slightly steadier now that she’d had something to drink that wasn’t liquor. Billy joined her, and followed them through the door, uncertain of where that left them. She still hadn’t said anything.

Byers opened the door to the Chief of Hawkins PD with his shirt buttoned up unevenly, shoulders squared and one hand on his gun. The man looked grumpy, but had still shown up at Wheeler's request.

“Sorry Hop, they all cleared out after I called”, Nancy said sheepishly. “I forgot to call back to cancel.”

Hopper grumbled, but took an assessing look at the four of them. He lingered on Stevie, then Billy, frowning. “Got distracted trying to get this one in hand, I'm sure.”

He nodded to Stevie, who was holding on to banister but slowly sliding down as the arm supporting her did. She looked at him helplessly as she struggled to get back to a standing position.

“However did you know?” Byers asked dryly, peering over his shoulder and out into the night. “Sorry we interrupted family night.”

Hopper sighed. “Kid’s happy in front of the TV, so she won’t miss me for an hour. Besides, she wanted me to have you pass something along to Mike, so it all works out. Had it ready by the door and everything, even before you called.”

Byers laughed. “Typical El. Always one step ahead.”

The name struck something deep inside him, that resonated past the lingering haze of beer and bud and shock of being in front of the Hawkins Chief of Police and not being hauled out in handcuffs.

_El. _

The girl who flipped a truck with her mind, he recalled. Who broke men's throats with a jerk of her head and a little more than a thought.

He shivered.

Passing over a folded piece of paper, the cop stepped back, hands now relaxed and at his sides. Clearing his throat, he nodded at Wheeler. “Make sure he gets it, all right? I don’t need her breathing down my neck if he misses her call again because he’s with those friends of his at the arcade.”

“Will do, Hopper”, Nancy promised, nodding fervently. She tucked it quickly into her pocket, not even giving the note a second glance. Billy knew he wouldn’t have had that kind of self-control if someone had asked him to pass love notes between some kid and Max.

He was a curious guy. So sue him.

“All right then, kids. Stay safe, and _stop drinking_”, he said gruffly, the last bit aimed very pointedly at Stevie, who seemed to have collected herself. She turned a bit pink, and stared at a painting on the other side of the room.

Closing the door behind him, Byers let out a long breath, before rounding on Stevie.

“Smooth. Real smooth.”

His tone was biting, but a smile played on the corners of his mouth. Wheeler snorted, holding a hand over her mouth as if it would take back the sound she’d just made.

“Like you were doing much better there, _Judas_”, Stevie pouted. “Throwing me to th-the wolves like that was pathetic. I just wan' you to know that.”

“You seem to have sobered up pretty fast”, Billy cut in, furrowing his brow. She wasn’t slurring her words nearly so much anymore, and was capable of standing in place without swaying like she had been before. That, and as he recalled, she'd polished off a good two-thirds of a bottle. That was, assuming the bottle was new when she’d started.

She laughed, hesitantly heading further down the stairs so she was in arm's length distance and patting him slowly on the arm.

“’s all in the practice”, she winked, stumbling over the last step and into his chest.

This seemed like a reoccurring pattern, Billy remarked, wrapping one arm around her waist to help steady her. Frowning, he took inventory of her.

Her cheeks were flushed from the alcohol, and her eyes were drooping, kids heavy from liquor. Her makeup was still a mess, like her hair, and she still smelled amazing and overpowering all at once. But she needed to sober up a bit.

“Right, so you’re going to go eat something”, he announced as her head came to rest on his shoulder. “And more water.”

“I second that”, Byers nodded, and Wheeler made a sound of agreement.

“Can you make me a grilled cheese?” her voice was very quiet against his neck, and it yanked at something deep in his stomach that made him want to say yes and turn tail and run in the other direction all at once.

“That can be arranged. Whatever you want, Stevie.”

Jesus, if he’d never heard it firsthand, he’d never have believed Nancy Wheeler to be capable of so much warmth towards another human being. She barely even gave Byers as much care. He got the feeling that it was something unique to Stevie Harrington that no other person would ever be able to replicate.

There was something indulgent about Nancy Wheeler when she spoke to Stevie, a quality he hadn’t expected to find in a girl who had just fought over a boy with her. He was surprised that they were even on friendly terms from what little he’d overheard the day they’d fought by the pool at practice.

To be fair though, Stevie seemed friendly with _everyone_ right now, he noted, feeling the warmth of her seep through his clothes. Well, everyone except Tommy.

Maybe Wheeler was overcompensating for almost ripping her tongue out earlier and swiping the object of her affections away, he reasoned to himself. That, and chicks were just fucking crazy and no matter what he did, he knew he’d never understand them.

Instead, he carefully pried her off of him and stood her straight, adjusting the strap of her dress that had been pushed up over her shoulder back down again. She giggled, a sound he barely recognized without the signature sneer to follow it up, but seemed capable of standing on her own again.

Guiding her to the kitchen quietly, he followed the couple as they began to pull food from the fridge and the pantry, and a pan and spatula from some cabinets. He envied the ease with which they navigated this huge space, full of gadgets he didn’t even know the name of.

All wasted on a girl who burned coffee, he thought, mournfully.

Billy wasn’t someone who was interested in cooking, but he got stuck with making food for him and Maxine every time the parents went out of town, since they never left cash for pizza. He knew how to make something easy and fast that tasted pretty good, too. He wondered if any of that expensive shit would help make it easier or faster.

He and Stevie settled at the table behind the counter, resigned to watching them move around each other in the kitchen; his hand on her hip to shift her away from a drawer that needed opening, or her bringing over the butter without a word the second she saw him ready the spatula to flip the sandwich. He watched her brush her hands over Byers' shoulders and smile when he cut off the crusts, like Stevie was a kid with picky tastes.

Stevie sighed, looking down at her hands. And then, as if she was just remembering that he was also still there, she pulled up his own, limp but warm and dry in her own. Splaying her fingers out carefully, she bit her lip and tried to work his own open against hers. Her hand was small in his, and her fingers thin and delicate, but not long. Her palm compensated, cool in his own.

“You’ve got big hands”, she announced, as if it was the final piece to a puzzle she’d just found under the couch cushions.

“Yes. Yes, I do”, he said, flatly. He failed to see how that was in any way relevant.

“All the bigger to grab me with”, she sang, grasping his hand with her own, eyeing the latching of their fingers with interest. His eyes flew from their hands, to her cleavage, to her hair.

He watched as her pupils expanded as they tracked his gaze and she breathed in short and sharp, saw her clench her thighs together and smirked. Biting his lip, he squeezed her fingers just tight enough around her own. She licked her lips and scooted her chair closer, until it was pushed right up against his, moving as if to crawl into his lap.

Oh yeah. He was getting some tonight.

Just as soon as she was sober enough to not accidentally get her teeth involved in a blowjob. He knew that sloppy drunk meant sloppy sucking and _not _in the fun way. Besides, keeping her attention at the moment seemed a bit difficult, especially considering that—

“Food's ready!”

The plate barely touched down before Stevie devoured the first of two sandwiches in what seemed like seconds. Honest—he felt like he’d barely blinked and it was _gone. _

She polished off the second one a bit more slowly, draining a glass of water between bites.

“My compliments to the chef”, she grinned at Byers, licking a bit of American cheese off her index. Billy always hated those plastic slices, packaged and gelatinous and everlasting in the fridge and easy on the wallet.

He’d eaten a _lot_ of American cheese growing up.

“Feeling a bit better now?” Nancy asked, sliding in next to Stevie.

Stevie nodded, looking over at Wheeler, then Byers, and giving a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

“Much better. So much better. Room's stopped spinning and everything.”

Wheeler and Byers exchanged a look for a long moment, breaking eye contact only when Stevie spoke up again, her voice no longer slurring but clear, and unhesitant.

“It’s okay. You can go. I’m fine now”, she announced, staring them down. Nancy opened her mouth to speak, but Stevie cut her off abruptly.

“I’m okay. Not going to jump out of any windows, not about to betray any State secrets.”

The last part could have been interpreted as a joke, but seeing the shadow pass over Wheeler’s face, Billy knew that she was being serious. Now, if only she hadn’t told him all of that shit and showed him evidence of a monster that tore through worlds to hunt people last week, he thought.

“Stevie”, Byers interrupted, looking between him and her, half-sprawled on him now that she’d finished eating. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine, Jon”, she said, her tone flat. “I’m feeling better, and it’s okay. I can handle myself.”

“Can you handle _him_?”

_God, _he hated Wheeler's voice. And resented the implications.

He knew how to back off when told no. It was something so basic that even a fucking _dog _could do it, and she thought he was the kind of sick fuck to—

“No, Jon, she needs to hear this”, Wheeler hissed as Byers tried to intercept her and play peacemaker. “I heard rumors but never gave them any mind because I thought you were better than this, Stevie!”

“I don’t see how it’s any of your business who I’m sleeping with at this point, Nancy”, Stevie replied coolly, squirming her way into his lap, legs draped horizontally across his and leaning into him once more. She seemed to be seeking warmth, or comfort of some kind. Her sweet, flowery smell reminded him of the orchards in Cali in the spring, blooming thick and heavy with orange blossoms and honey.

“Mike told me what he did that night”, she spat, disgusted. “I don’t know how the hell you can excuse that kind of shit and crawl into bed with him at night and think he won’t _do exactly the same thing to you!_”

Billy felt anger lashing at him from the inside, clenching his fists as it licked at him, daring him to prove her right because _why shouldn’t he?_

She already thought he was trash.

They all fucking did.

He knew that Wheeler lived five blocks from him, and thought that that was enough to distinguish her from him, as if living in a two-story house made her any better. He knew she heard the gossip, had seen her drive by with her parents.

But he wouldn’t. He refused to become his father.

And besides—why was she only now giving her shit for this now?

Was this somehow news to her?

Billy had thought that all of Hawkins High knew that they were fucking.

“There were a bunch of misunderstandings”, Stevie said tightly. “Some words were exchanged. I may have punched him in the face, and he might’ve broken some dishes, but that kind of shit was never on the table.”

“And the kids…” she trailed off, looking up at him, chewing on her lip. That was when he knew that she hadn’t told anyone, that she hadn’t even told her best friend about the thing he’d asked her to keep quiet. He didn’t quite know how to feel about that.

But if it got Wheeler to shut the hell up and off their backs, he would gladly put up and shut up enough to get them off the hook.

“Okay, first of all, all I had heard about this kid before from my step-sister was that he was stalking her, following her around.”, Billy cut in, rummaging for his pack and lighter.

“So, she goes missing and I go out to find her, and find out from _your mother _that she’s at Will Byers' house, where I go to get her. I found her there with him, huddled in a corner and fucking terrified, _so yeah, I overreacted, _but from where I was standing, it seemed like a fair fucking conclusion to draw.”

Lighting his cigarette, he took a puff and exhaled. Stevie's hand reached over and stole it, planting it in the corner of her mouth for a moment before being returned to his own.

“And yeah, maybe threatening a kid with physical violence isn’t the greatest decision, but _believe it or not, _it _has _come to that over Maxine before. So excuse me for jumping the gun, but I was expecting the worst from the situation and acted like family _should._”

Nancy Wheeler seemed to have nothing left to say, standing and staring, dumbfounded.

Jonathan Byers seemed equally at a loss for words, hands in his pockets and eyeing the floor like it held the answers to all his problems.

Stevie repeated herself, for the last time.

“I’m fine. You can go home now.”

Nodding over and over but not saying a word to her, Nancy turned to her boyfriend. “Could you get my jacket?”

Wordlessly, Byers began to dig around the front hall closet, finally dragging out a fluffy pink jacket and a sheepskin coat, lined with canvas around the outside. Quietly, they gathered their things and made their way to the door, eyes downcast.

Pausing as they went to leave, Byers cleared his throat, stuck his head back in and gave Stevie a hopeful grin that made him want to gag. He’d already chosen her best friend, he didn’t get to double back and take the pair, he sneered. Billy did that kind of shit all the time, sure, but he was him and Byers was the class creep. Bet he didn’t even lift, he scoffed, eyeing those toothpick arms.

“I’ll see you at the Hendersons' for movie night tomorrow, right?”

Stevie nodded, still curled into his side in the kitchen, refusing to stand up. Her arms were crossed around her chest and her head was tucked under his arm, but her frame was tense under him.

“I'll see you around.”

As he wished her good night, Billy noticed Wheeler pacing by the door, looking upset and impatient to leave. She looked the same as she had the day he’d heard them fighting; an expression he’d come to associate with 'heartbroken', because there was no other way to describe it. The jut of her chin, the wobble of her lip, the glassiness of her eyes—it all added up to a familiar emotion he’d seen after she and Stevie clashed.

He didn’t like the mood it put her in, clawing at her leg one minute and then making a fool of herself the next. She regressed whenever they argued, he noted.

Whenever they did it, she laid out her perspective in frank terms and wasn’t afraid to tell him when he was being a prick. With her winding arguments for her case, Billy was forced into playing more cards to pull himself out of trouble and cool her temper. Otherwise, she’d dance around him, pulling out that sharp tongue he preferred in his mouth or on his dick.

The school counselor would’ve been over the moon to witness him opening up for the first time in years, forced to justify his actions by someone just as damaged. A different kind of damaged, sure, but he'd worked as a clerk before. Damaged goods is damaged goods.

As the door slammed shut, announcing their exit, Stevie practically bolted from his side, up and pacing around the kitchen in seconds. She kept turning round and round the island with the stove and butcher's block at the center of the room until he got up and put a hand, spread open wide to cover her collarbone when she walked past him next.

“Whoa there—where are you going, baby?”

She scrunched up her features and frowned, tapping a finger on the bicep her hand held impatiently. Her eyes tracked across the room, jumping from one window to another with nervous energy.

“I-I don’t know”, she stuttered, finally turning wide eyes on him. She shrugged helplessly, sighing. 

“I just need to not be _here_.”

Grinning, Billy reached into his pocket and pulled out his keys, dangling them above her.

“Sounds like you need to go for a drive.”

][][][][][][][][][][

Billy drove like something was chasing him; rounding corners tightly with screeching tires and revving his engine every time they passed the only red light in town to make the seconds count down quicker.

He drove like Hawkins' horrors were nipping at his taillights. It gave Stevie butterflies when they flew down the empty streets that night, making sharp turns and drifting, out of control until Billy gunned the engine again. The open windows made her hair whip around the cab, floating up like her arms did as they skidded, giggling until she ran out of breath.

‘'I Can't Drive 55’ by The Circle was blaring so loudly she could feel the guitar through the leather upholstery, and Billy would drum along on the wheel, tipping his head back to shout the chorus in time with Sammy Hagar. Every time he did she laughed, watching his biceps flex as he revved the engine and flew through another stop after barely more than a glance.

They would hit speed bumps and her hands would kiss the ceiling of the cab, floating without gravity for a half second until the Earth pulled them back down to the ground and their asses back into their seats. She felt like she could run a minute mile that second, even with all of the alcohol and weed in her system.

The street lamps drew streaks of light as they whipped past, aiming for a side road that wormed its way out of town, straight and slow for long stretches. Stevie felt Billy's hand come to rest on her upper thigh, close to the hem of the dress she wore, which had ridden up and looked at the tops of her legs. It was warm and large, almost big enough to wrap around her whole thigh.

She shivered, rolling her hips as she leaned into the touch. His hand flexed and gripped, making her sigh.

To distract herself from what she knew he’d do if she asked, Stevie flipped through his cassette collection, finally settling on W.A.S.P.'s newest album and tuning it to their cover of the Stones' 'Paint It Black'.

He'd clearly sorted through his collection since she’d last checked, swapping out the ballads for more metal and heavy rock. Whether he was embarrassed by how worn out his tape of Journey's Escape was, or whether he just wasn’t feeling the more melodic, wistful music anymore, they were now nowhere to be found. Stevie made do with what was available, settling between what she was comfortable with and his own tastes.

The hand inched upwards slowly, the tips of fingers dipping under the hem of her dress. She inhaled sharply and he laughed, letting go of the steering wheel. Leaning over the gear shift, he kissed her, his teeth sinking into her bottom lip and sucking, his other hand now wound in her hair and pulling at the roots.

Realizing what he’d done, Stevie was both terrified and absolutely ready to do whatever he wanted her to. The hand on her leg was now cupped over her lace panties, and the other was _very much not steering the car. _

They coasted on a flat stretch of empty road, light off and hands busy, until he started to work his fingers under her underwear and the car began to drift into the other lane.

“Mphh—Billy!”

The car continued to shift, until it almost hit dirt from swerving so far to the left. Stevie shrieked and began to squirm to reach out and grab the wheel because there were trees everywhere all of the sudden because they’d passed all of the farmland bordering the south side of town along where the river flowed and _she was going to—_

Billy broke away from her, laughing maniacally as he reached out with the hand not between her thighs and pulled them back into the right-hand side with so much nonchalance that she was _speechless. _

And out of breath.

And still writhing against his fingers, which had slid inside of her and were rubbing at one of the good spots, making her whine low under her breath and arch her back. The angle made her fight the seatbelt, but she was damned if she was dying in a car wreck with this dumbass.

“Pull over”, she breathed. Her eyes were wide and her pupils were too, reflected at her in the rear-view mirror. They caught his, and she saw him smirk.

He parked along a shoulder looking out onto the edge of a cliff, overlooking the town from what seemed almost far away. The entire time he pulled the car to a stop and turned off the ignition, his fingers were still at work, twisting against her and his thumb toying with her clit.

All Stevie could do was moan, covering the wrist of the hand getting her off with her own, holding it in place as she rode against them. He hooked them inside her, twisting wetly and rubbing against the places that made her squirm and pant, one hand pressed flat against the fogged-up window.

The adrenaline had her riding high, her heart still pounding from the skid of the tires and the carelessness in Billy's laugh as they flew through the night. Her chest rose and fell quickly, and his free hand took advantage of that, pulling down the neckline of her dress to expose the fact that she hadn’t bothered with a bra. She’d been too drunk while getting dressed to care, having kicked off her evening early at 5pm sharp, cracking the seal on her bottle of Beefeater to pour over a glass of ice and lemon.

Toying with a nipple, he put his mouth over the other, displaying his surprising ability to multitask. She was distracted, however, when he abandoned her chest to pay closer attention to her clit once more. As he continued to press his fingers inside her, watching her closely as she moaned louder and bucked her hips, she felt herself closer and closer, until he grabbed her hair and pulled and—

“Oh, fuck”, she whispered, crying out and working her hips against his fingers furiously as she clenched and fell apart around his hand. She sobbed as she came, resisting the urge to hold his hand against her long after she finished.

Slowly collecting herself, she leaned over to where he was stroking his cock, thick around the base even in his large hands. Eyeing his movements closely, she whispered into his ear.

“Put your seat down.”

He hesitated, taking a proper look at her. “You sure you’re not still drunk?”

“Give me half an hour and I could probably drive us home”, she deadpanned, still staring at how his hands stroked. “Now put that fucking seat down so I can ride you until I can’t sit up straight anymore.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know Nancy seems a little abrupt here, switching back and forth from one mood to the next with barely any ramping up. My perspective when writing her this chapter is that although we've spent less time with her so far, she's just as affected by the events of the previous seasons as Jonathan and Stevie. That, and I justify her outburst when she thinks Stevie has revealed the secrets about Hawkins Lab with how Stevie refused to help her tell Barb's parents about their daughter's death earlier on. In Nancy's shoes, I would see that as the ultimate hypocrisy and would be ready to rip her a new one.   
Not only that, but she's trying to find her place in what used to be a very muddled relationship between herself and Stevie, and she's just spent the night keeping her in check only to find out that her ex is already on the rebound.... with the local douchebag.   
This might seem a little unrealistic considering how little they've been hiding things, but denial is a long road and Nancy can be very self-involved when she sets her mind to something. 
> 
> Hoping you've enjoyed these updates, more to come soon!

**Author's Note:**

> A little bit of something fun, also a lot of something sad.  
I've been obsessing over the show and wanted to take a look at things in the universe just next door to that of Stranger Things, and I'm having a blast working this up.  
Hope you enjoy


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